Catalyst in the Partnership
by Covalent Bond
Summary: What does it take to change your mind about someone? How Booth went from disliking Brennan to being her 'knight in standard-issue FBI armor.' This is a story built from a series of stand-alone chapters. Each is complete in itself, but they all build on each other.
1. Angela On the Hue of Generosity

**Author's Introduction:** A series of moments exploring how Booth went from disliking Brennan to being her 'knight in standard-issue FBI armor' in the first year of their partnership, followed by his changing feelings about her as they continue to work together. I am marking this as incomplete because this is the first of a series of stand-alone chapters. Each chapter is complete in itself, but they all will build on each other. At the moment I have seven chapters complete; I'm working on a few more that I definitely plan to publish.

**A Note About the Title:** A _Catalyst_ in chemistry is a substance that accelerates a chemical reaction, without increasing the temperature and without being changed itself. In human terms, a person can be a catalyst if they cause a change or action between two people without being affected or changed themselves.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own or benefit from Bones in any way. I will be borrowing dialogue and incidents from select episodes and building upon them to draw out certain themes. In this first chapter, credit for episode dialogue goes to Hart Hanson.

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_Catalyst in the Partnership_

**1.**

**_Angela – On the Hue of Generosity_**

_"You must know about her family. Both parents disappear when she was 15. Probably counts as the 'real world.'"_

Special Agent Seeley Booth couldn't believe his ears, or his eyes. The cadre of scientists, complete with one unconventional forensic artist, stood around a giant holographic projector straight out of Star Trek and showed him a nifty movie that was based on circumstances and conjecture. Young political intern Cleo Eller was stabbed, her fingertips removed, her skull smashed, and evidence planted to misdirect the search for a suspect. And there stood the arrogant Dr. Temperance Brennan, Forensic Anthropologist Extraordinaire, agreeing when one of her minions claimed the first place Booth ought to look was a senator's basement.

Astonished, he asked, "You expect me to declare war on a United States Senator based on your little holographic crystal ball?"

Brennan's arms were crossed, her eyes narrowing in irritation. They'd been through this argument before, and it hadn't ended well that time, either. He'd dragged her out of a room and she'd struck him with a vicious blow to the zygomatic. She felt the same tide of fury rising now, the same disbelief that Booth was once again dismissing the evidence just because he didn't understand how to interpret it. "It's not magic. It's a logical recreation of events based on evidence."

"No more valid than my gut," he countered meaningfully. No way in hell was he going up against Senator Bethlehem with her squint squad's version of an Agatha Christie dénouement. Glaring at each of them in turn, he cut his gaze back to Brennan and found himself admiring the sparks flying out of her hammered-steel eyes. It had been a year, and he'd forgotten how stormy she could get. Booth decided he quite liked getting her all riled up regardless of the danger she posed to his person. Even though his cheek and his ego had both ached for days after the last time they'd dueled, she'd been so intensely provocative that he'd been unable to forget her. Booth had gone to great lengths just to be in the same room with Brennan again but he wasn't about to give her the satisfaction of backing down.

_He's pissing her off on purpose,_ Dr. Jack Hodgins realized. The resident expert on soils, insects and plants watched the interplay between his boss and the FBI agent with interest. He'd known that Booth had somehow gotten off to a bad start with Brennan a year ago. She'd stormed into the lab like a hurricane, raging that he was arrogant, stupid, a bully and she most assuredly wasn't ever going to speak to Special Agent Seeley Booth of the FBI ever again. Never. Ever. The tempest had raged throughout the lab for two hours that day, ceasing only when Angela dragged Brennan out "to blow off some steam."

In all the time Hodgins had known the unflappable Dr. Brennan, that was the first time he'd seen her careening out of control. And it was the last, until right now where she seemed to be on the verge once again. For a man with anger management issues of his own, seeing the hyper-rational scientist explode into fury was exhilarating and just a tiny bit terrifying. She'd kept her temper so tightly leashed that no one even knew it was there, thus the heights her rage could reach once it escaped had shocked everyone the first time around. Hodgins glanced at Angela and saw her eyes widening in apprehension of a second performance as well.

Brennan's eyes were narrowed, her body stiff, the fury rolling off of her in waves like a gathering storm surge. Hurricane Temperance was about to make landfall and Seeley Booth was clearly goading her on purpose, blowing heat into the system and watching the thunderclouds churn. Hodgins shook his head as the FBI agent's legendary arrogance clashed with Brennan's equally impressive temper. The man might have a gun, but Hodgins was fairly certain Brennan would win if it came to physical blows, and boy did she look ready to blow.

When she was angry, Temperance was anything but temperate. She was beautiful and dangerous in the way of Siberian tigers, blue eyes flashing and coiled muscles rippling with restrained strength. Where tigers had sharp claws, Brennan had a razor sharp tongue—she could flay a man alive using words alone, then follow it up with a beating calculated to bring about maximum pain in minimal time. Clearly she was dangerous: last year she'd beaten up a judge and cold-cocked an FBI agent all in the same 24 hours. Only two days ago, Angela had watched in glee while Brennan dropped a Homeland Security agent over 6'6 and 300 pounds as if he were a ten year old. Apparently Booth was unafraid of her, but he was the only one not quavering.

The intern, Zack Addy, interrupted nervously when he saw the sparks shooting out of his mentor's eyes and the blatant disregard emanating from the FBI agent. Reading social situations wasn't his strong suit, but even he could see the confrontation brewing. Remembering the last time Booth had rigged Dr. Brennan for an explosion, he thought it might be prudent to cut the fuse. Perhaps a bit of logic might help. "A good hypothesis withstands testing. That's what _makes_ it a good hypothesis."

Then Zack paused to wonder if Agent Booth even knew what a scientific hypothesis was. Pose a question, then design an experiment to prove or disprove the question. All he had to do was find the cement floor to prove the hypothesis about the senator right or wrong. It was simple—why couldn't Booth see that?

"This is not a hypothesis," Booth sneered. "You have a dead girl and a _United States senator_." It was a simple, common-sense rule—why couldn't these clueless squints see that? One did not go up against powerful people without all their ducks lined up. He'd been over this before with Brennan, didn't she remember Judge Hasting? Evidently she still didn't know how it worked, the way of politics and power. It seemed working in this lab had sucked all common sense out of their heads.

Booth pinned his gaze coldly on Brennan, letting her know she was out of her element. "This is exactly why squints belong in the lab. You guys don't know anything about the real world."

If he hadn't been looking at her, Booth would have missed the arrow of pain that darted across her features before her entire body stiffened and she brought herself under control. It was only a moment, but a telling one. Just that fast, the fire in her drowned under a surge of ice water. Brennan's face hardened, the sparks in her eyes subsiding into the lifeless grey of a frozen lake. She flicked her gaze over the assembled scientists, taking them all in with a frosty sweep. "Come on. We're done here."

She turned and walked out, head erect, shoulders slung back proudly. At least she didn't hit him this time. Booth counted that as progress.

Wordlessly, the others filed out behind her, each one casting a hard, angry glance Booth's way. Their disapproval washed off each one of them in waves as they departed, leaving Booth to wonder why they were so sensitive.

"Wow." Irritated, he tossed a red poker die in his right hand, a relic from his gambling days and reminder of how recently he'd overcome that vice. Catching it, he turned his head and saw one squint still standing there. His glance oozed disdain. "Touchy," he groused.

Only Angela Montenegro remained, because it was her office. But the lovely Asian woman paused in her studied disregard of the not-so-special agent to offer an explanation for his unanimous dismissal. "You must know about her family. Both parents disappeared when she was 15. Probably counts as the 'real world.'"

Booth scoffed. "Yeah, I know the story. I read the file. The cops never found out anything."

Angela agreed quietly. "Yeah. Brennan figures, maybe, if someone like her had been there…."

"For someone who hates psychology, she sure has a lot of it." He shrugged dismissively, hands jammed into his pockets.

Angela stared at him. Glared at him. Waited for him to get a clue. Nothing.

She took a step closer, suddenly understanding what had pissed Brennan off so much a year ago. Her eyes flashed dangerously. In her own way, Angela was just as hazardous as Brennan. "You may be cute, but you are also a complete ass."

"What?" He stepped back, surprised at the rapid change of mood.

"Think about it, G-man. A kid with no extended family suddenly has no parents. What the hell do you think happened to her after that? Huh? Where do you suppose she ended up?"

"Not with relatives…." He guessed, since Angela had just indicated Brennan didn't have family.

"Foster care."

He winced.

"Do you know how rare it is for a foster kid to even make it into college? Let alone earning multiple PhDs. Do you have any idea how hard she's worked, how much she's had to overcome?"

Feeling chastised, Booth looked away. Shrugged. He wasn't sure he wanted to think about it, or to allow sympathy or admiration to soften the righteous irritation he'd been harboring for months. Brennan was the one who had gone nuts, why should he have to consider the possible causes underlying her evident insanity?

"Do you have any idea how many times Brennan has been kicked by life in general, but she gets up and keeps working?"

"So, what are you saying. You're her biggest fan?"

"We all are." Angela took another step into his space, radiating hostility and a protective instinct that was quite at odds with her usual 'flighty artist' demeanor.

"You want to keep working with Brennan? You need to look deeper. There's more to her than you think. I promise you, if you really pay attention and get to know her even a little, you will see what we see. You'll understand why they all follow her and why I'm just barely holding back from kicking your ass."

Booth barked a laugh. "You?"

"Me. Hodgins. Zack. Even Goodman. Don't you dare slight her, or we will all be lining up for a swing. You understand me?"

"Are you threatening me?" he asked incredulously.

"I don't make threats," she assured him. "I make promises."

A chill rolled across Booth's shoulders. Angela was serious, seriously threatening him. And all the other squints did seem poised to strike out on Brennan's behalf as well. Given how arrogant and irritating the forensic anthropologist was, he couldn't credit such loyalty. They should hate her, be willing to sabotage her; instead they were lining up in her defense. Something didn't add up.

His confusion must have been obvious because Angela's eyes suddenly turned a warmer shade. "Tell you what, I'll give you your first clue for free."

She walked over to her desk, picking up a skull that was crazed with fracture lines all over it, like a crackly old porcelain cup. "This is Cleo's skull. You remember how many pieces there were?"

He nodded, remembering slivers and shards by the hundreds that Brennan had cataloged at the pond, taking care to wrap each as if it were porcelain rather than bone. Disbelief etched his features as he regarded the reconstructed whole. Every piece had been carefully glued back into place, leaving the skull nearly complete again, aside from a triangle patch of clay centered in the forehead and a second clay patch bridging the arch of one cheek. Tiny pencil erasers had been glued over the facial bones, marking the estimated tissue depths that had guided Angela's reconstruction of the face.

Angela traced over the skull almost lovingly. "After traveling for 26 hours, winning a fight against a much larger Homeland Security agent, being arrested at the airport, dragged out to a crime scene and working all night to retrieve a skeleton from a pond, Brennan was still at work the next day. She prepared said skeleton for cleaning and examination, then proceeded to stay awake all night for a second night to glue over 1000 bits of bone back together into this skull. Two nights, no sleep."

She pinned him with a hard glare. "That's the kind of dedication Brennan gives to her work, to the nameless people who come into this lab. She gives up everything for them, including food, sleep and any inkling of a social life. I know it looks to you like she doesn't care; that just shows how little you know. Detachment is the only way she can survive all the death and destruction she sees. It gets to her. So, when people call her cold … it hurts her."

Setting down the skull, Angela gave her second warning shot. She looked directly into his eyes, her words making clear she knew he'd called Brennan cold during their previous case. "It hurts her a lot, Booth."

A flush of shame and guilt brushed his cheeks darker for a moment. "I had no idea she missed two nights of sleep."

"She's not going to tell you. She's never going to tell you any of this—that's not who she is. So it falls to us, the people who've bothered to know her. I'm telling you what you need to know. Listen carefully. Brennan is honest. Dedicated. Modest—no, don't you dare interrupt."

He'd drawn in a breath, about to sputter that Brennan threw around her PhDs like a fist, smashing him in the face with them repeatedly. And all those comments she made about her intelligence and his lack thereof. _"I'm the best in the world,"_ she'd said. That was modesty?!

But Angela steamrolled right over him, apparently reading his mind in the process. "Yes, she _is_ modest. When she tells you she has three PhDs or an IQ of 183, she's just stating a fact. But the other stuff, the amazing stuff, that's what she won't talk about. Things like skipping food and sleep to reconstruct a stranger's skull. You have no idea of her generosity, the things she's done for others. She just does them, never tells anyone. Did you know she started a scholarship in the name of Jemma Arrington? The singer in your first case together."

His expression must have indicated this was the first he'd heard of this. Angela nodded and continued. "She didn't tell me either, I read about it in the Post. That's the kind of modesty I'm talking about."

"Brennan started a scholarship?"

"She used the profits from her book: the whole check, including any future royalties. She didn't keep a penny."

Speechless, he could only gape at the artist with a look of utter astonishment. Amazement couldn't even begin to describe what this news made him feel. Right on the heels of amazed came a phalanx of embarrassment, then shame. The parade ended with a spike of nausea that he had to swallow down thickly as the depth of his misjudgment of Temperance Brennan was exposed.

Smirking, Angela reached out to gently push his jaw closed. "Now you're starting to see what we see. If you want to apologize, she's probably either in Limbo or at the shooting range. If she's in Limbo, she's close to forgiving you."

Still recovering from her shocking revelation, Booth sent her a blank look. "Limbo?"

The artist shrugged. "Brennan prefers 'modular bone storage,' but I think Limbo is more poetic. The Jeffersonian has thousands of unidentified bodies waiting for identification or authentication. Limbo is where they wait."

He stored that knowledge away with the other nuggets of trivia Angela was letting fall today. "So she goes there to calm down," he surmised.

Angela laughed. "She's always calm, except where you're concerned."

Off his startled expression, she continued. "If she's at the shooting range, it's probably you she's thinking of shooting. Better put on a bullet-proof vest before you approach."

Wearing a mischievous grin, she left him standing in her office with a riot of thoughts tumbling through his head. Foremost among them was the sinking realization that, in order to win back Temperance Brennan, he was going to have to become some kind of saint. But he wasn't ready to be a saint, not yet.

~Q~

Booth found her standing with legs stiff, arms braced, and a semi-automatic pistol bucking gently in her hands. Brennan sent five shots straight into the human-shaped target's center of mass, punching a neat little cluster of holes into the 'bulls-eye' at fifty yards. Booth watched silently until she was finished, impressed despite himself.

"Thought I might find you here," he finally announced when she lowered the smoking pistol. He didn't add that he'd known there was only one other place to look, and he'd checked Limbo first. That she was shooting meant she wasn't in a forgiving mood. Disappointed and apprehensive from Angela's warning, he'd decided to go on the offensive. She couldn't attack if he attacked first.

"You know, you being a good shot, an expert in three martial arts, it's just your way of dealing." Brennan removed her hearing protection as Booth sauntered closer, concluding sarcastically, "Who knows better than _you_, how fragile life can be."

She refused to face him, but her challenge drifted back over her shoulder. "Maybe an Army Ranger Sniper who became an FBI homicide detective."

Booth pursed his lips, suddenly feeling flattered. "Ah. You looked me up, huh?"

He stepped boldly into her cubicle, gesturing to the pistol she'd laid on the bench. "You mind?"

"Be my guest." She slid a different gun his way, a snub-nosed revolver.

"Thank you," Booth murmured. Lifting the small handgun, he sighted and shot. The bullet flew wide, strafing the target's forearm. He winced, feigning dissatisfaction.

Brennan smirked, knowing he'd missed because of her, intentional or otherwise. Either way, she counted it a victory. Laughing, she cooed, "Were you any good at being a sniper?"

Booth leaned closer to her, leaving her bait untouched. "A sniper gets to know a little something about killers. Senator Bethlehem? He's no killer."

Brennan turned toward him, chin tipped challengingly. "Oh, and Oliver Laurier is…."

"The way I read Laurier, he's unhinged." He tipped closer to Brennan, closing the distance until mere inches separated them. Whispering, he taunted, "that makes him dangerous."

"That'd be your _gut_ telling you that, correct?" Her eyes were flashing again like sunlit glass. A mocking smile tugged at her lips, dragging his gaze briefly to her mouth. Memories of those lips sliding against his darted through Booth's mind, the taste of Tequila and paradise still lingering on his tongue. With iron resolve, Booth forced his attention away from her tempting and oh-so-irritating mouth and back to putting her in her place: the lab. She didn't belong in his world and it was high time she got the message.

"You know, homicides, they're not solved by scientists. They're solved by guys like me, asking a thousand questions a thousand times, catching people telling lies every time."

He pushed in closer still, raising his arm to block her exit. He bored into her eyes, wide and glinting with intelligence. Her pupils expanded, her body flooding with adrenaline in preparation for the battle of wits and tongues they were engaging in. But she didn't flinch or look away, he noted.

With mock sympathy, Booth concluded, "You know, Bones, you're great at what you do, but you don't solve crimes. Cops do."

Most people retreated when someone stepped that deeply into their personal space. Brennan leaned back against the wall but didn't back down. Of course she wouldn't, he mused. 'Most people' weren't a former foster kid with three PhDs, a scientist who knew enough karate to break a judge's nose and bring down a Homeland Security agent. Booth was getting the feeling that Temperance Brennan didn't back down from anything. As much as she was pissing him off at the moment, he grudgingly had to admire her spunk.

"Cleo Eller died on a cement floor sprinkled with diatomaceous earth. Traces of her blood will still be in that cement."

The rasp of her alto voice skated over his skin, sending shivers everywhere. How was it possible the woman's voice turned him on that much?! Once again, his eyes fell to her lips, and he was sorely tempted to try his luck kissing her again. Only the presence of multiple handguns within her furious reach held his baser urges in check. Instinct told him she wouldn't hesitate to shoot if he dared to touch her just now.

"One of us is wrong," Brennan nearly whispered. "Maybe both of us."

She cocked her head to the side, the arrogant half-grin that still haunted his dreams ghosting across her lips. "But if Bethlehem wasn't a senator, you'd be right there in his basement looking for that killing floor. You're afraid of him."

Booth felt his desire melting back into fury. She was calling him a _coward_?

Brennan smirked, knowing she was getting to him. Her people skills might be lagging, but for some reason she found it ridiculously easy to find and push Seeley Booth's buttons. "Your hypothesis is that squints don't solve crimes and cops do."

Again that sexy, arrogant grin. "Prove it," she dared him.

Again, that raspy whisper that made him want to throw her on the ground and take her right there. "Be a cop," she taunted, and slipped away.

Booth watched her strut away, her hips swaying just a bit more than usual. Somehow she'd managed to grab her two handguns while he was busy getting lost in her voice and lips. He suspected she'd known that. Gritting his teeth, he drew his own service pistol and leveled two shots to the head of Brennan's abandoned target. For a half second, he'd almost imagined it was Brennan; she pissed him off that much.

Turning, he found her gathering up spare ammunition and replacing her firearms in their carrying case. Rather than looking triumphant, she looked … unsettled. _There's more to her than you think._ His talk with Angela tempered the simmering irritation just enough that he decided to try again. Thanks to Angela's intervention, Brennan was a puzzle that he was becoming determined to solve.

"I read an interesting newspaper article recently."

Brennan's attention remained on her task but by the stiffening of her shoulders, he knew she was listening.

"You started a scholarship in Jemma's name."

The movements of her hands slowed, stopped. She held very still for a long moment. When her face lifted to his, she looked as wary as a doe during hunting season.

"Why'd you do that, Bones."

"Don't call me Bones," she retorted, the response automatic.

He stepped closer again. "Why?"

Her gaze slid sideways, her lips compressing. "The idea for my book was a result of Jemma's death. It didn't seem right to profit from her family's tragedy." She shrugged, trying to deflect further discussion.

Slipping one finger under her chin, Booth lifted her face back up to his. He studied her, the tip of his thumb stroking her chin absently. "You surprise me," he mused.

As a soldier, as a sniper, as a gambler, as an investigator, Booth made his living reading people. He could look at a person and see right into the heart of them, read them like newsprint. Brennan was a heavy text filled with foreign, incomprehensible words. The fact that he couldn't figure her out lured him as nothing else could. He knew she wasn't doing it intentionally, which made her mystery all the sweeter. The only thing constant about Brennan was her unpredictability.

She jerked her face loose, surprising him again by retreating, where before she had stood her ground. "You don't know me."

"I know," he agreed. "That's why I find you so fascinating. I know people; but I don't know you. You ever gonna let me in?"

Her brow furrowed, confusion clouding her eyes. "I don't know what that means. Let you into what."

"You," he whispered.

Shock stole the color from her cheeks. Sputtering in outrage, she began telling him just what she thought of that notion. "You conceited, supercilious—"

Booth threw back his head in laughter. "Metaphorically, of course. Simmer down, Bones."

"Don't call me Bones!" She slammed the last pistol into the case, snapped it shut and stormed out of the shooting area.

Watching her leave, Booth laughed at himself. She ticked him off, turned him on, spun him around and left him dizzy. He could see he was having the same effect on her—Angela had all but confirmed it. _"She's always calm, except where you're concerned." _Whatever she did to him, knowing he was doing it to her also just made it so much better.

The chemistry he had with Brennan had him thoroughly enthralled. Her lips had brought him to the very gates of heaven, and 24 hours later her fist had slammed him down into pain and confusion. She was spitting fire one moment and dishing out breath-taking generosity the next. She was dangerously sexy and yet hopelessly naïve; so clever she could look at a hazy image of a bone and identify a person, yet so ignorant of reality that she thought her word alone was enough to issue a warrant. The woman was a walking maze of contradictions.

Most of all, though, she'd been right. She'd been right about Jemma Arrington's characteristics and cause of death. She'd been right about the judge's nose. She'd been right about the x-ray consult as well, giving him a weapon and a killer. Grudgingly, he had to admit she was probably right this time too, at least in her assertion that the killer had done everything to conceal Cleo's identity. But was it the senator?

Booth considered the gauntlet Brennan had all but stripped off and thrown in his face. _Prove it. Be a cop._ She wanted him to search a senator's house. Booth retrieved the target they'd pierced together, noting her tight group in the heart and his deadly twins in the head. Head and heart. Together, he and Brennan made a potent team at the shooting range. How would they fare in the field?

With a sigh, he pulled out his phone and dialed the number of a sympathetic judge he knew. What better way to prove himself—and Brennan wrong—than getting the damn warrant to search Bethlehem's house.

~Q~

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**Author's Note:** While it looks like I may have taken liberties with Brennan's generosity, in actuality I am referencing a certain newspaper article that appeared quite briefly on-screen in season seven's _Crack in the Code_. The article mentions Dr. Temperance Brennan as having donated to a scholarship. The article is titled, "**Opera Scholarship Founded to Honor Slain Singer.**" The part about her donating _all_ the profits from her book comes from me. However, I wouldn't be surprised if she did something that generous, given she used profits from another of her books to rebuild a washed out bridge in a small town (which would cost millions!), and she also most likely donated generously to the scholarship fund that her intern Wendell Bray depended upon.


	2. Hodgins On the Essence of Genius

**Author's Note:** I'm planning to update this story on Sundays and Thursdays until it's finished. At the moment I have five chapters planned.

**Disclaimer:** I do not have the right to use these characters, but I'm borrowing them anyway. Dialogue excerpts are courtesy of Steve Blackman and Greg Wall (A Boy in a Bush), and Elizabeth Benjamin (The Man in the Wall).

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_Catalyst in the Partnership_

**2.**

**_Hodgins – On the Essence of Genius_**

_"You're rich. You single-handedly own the Cantilever Group. Don't deny it. I know." _

_"Don't tell Brennan."_

Angela's blunt statement describing who he was and how much influence he held caught Jack Hodgins off guard. He froze, withdrawing from his work and turning slowly, dreadfully, towards her. He didn't pause to wonder how she'd discovered it; really, it wasn't an easy secret to keep. His immense wealth was impossible to hide once anyone decided to look up his name on the Internet. If he had to guess, Hodgins suspected Zack had unwittingly given Angela the first clue that Hodgins was a name worth Googling.

He asked warily, "Who else knows?"

"Zack. Booth." Angela regarded him with a mixture of awe, anger, and sadness.

Turning away, he could only beg for one favor, the only one that mattered. "Don't tell Brennan."

"Why don't you want us to know that you're actually our boss?" She was stunned. This was not the reaction she'd expected. Why keep Brennan in the dark, Angela pondered.

Angrily, he snapped out the reason. "I don't want to be anybody's boss. I never did. Please respect that."

But there was more to it than that, so much more. Returning to his work, he felt Angela leave him. Hodgins resisted the urge to pluck the green rubber band encircling his wrist. It was still there, a reminder of who he'd been before Dr. Brennan had allowed him a place in her lab and given him purpose rather than paranoia. Brennan's pure respect for him meant everything. He couldn't bear the thought of his wealth tainting her opinion of him, of his abilities.

_I am more than my money,_ he thought determinedly. Suddenly, he reached down to his wrist and plucked the rubber band anyway—a reminder of what he'd gained since the day he'd claimed an evidence bag filled with modern clothing. Here in this lab, the only thing that mattered was his intelligence and his ability to tease meaning out of the rubbish obtained at crime scenes and archeological digs. What Brennan asked of Hodgins here was the measure of him as a man, not the impact of money and influence he'd had no part in amassing. The only thing she respected was his brain and his work ethic, the only parts of him that Hodgins wanted to matter.

Sensing his boss approaching, he glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. Brennan couldn't know about his wealth and the power he unwillingly held over her. He would just have to make sure she didn't find out. Fortunately, Brennan was too clueless in general and too worried about Angela in particular to notice Hodgins's agitation. She asked if Angela was upset about work, and he breathed a sigh of relief as he deflected Brennan's attention onto the forensic artist who had become her best friend over the past two years.

~Q~

"Angela! Booth!"

Hodgins found them walking along the side of the forensics platform and hurried to catch up. He was panting a little, winded from the search and the gravity of what he was about to ask. "Zack has been informed that if he tells anyone who I am, I will kick him out on the street like a stray dog. Sadly, there is nothing I can threaten you two with."

Angela sarcastically affirmed, "Yeah, that's a shame."

Hodgins continued as if she hadn't spoken. "What I want out of my life is to come in here and sift through slime and bugs. Unfortunately, my family is one of those who secretly runs the world."

Booth rolled his eyes. "Paranoia and delusions of grandeur, all in one package."

"You call it paranoia. I call it family business. Please, could you just _stop_!"

They'd begun walking away, but turned back at the almost desperate request.

Hodgins trotted to rejoin them. "The reason I don't want to go to that banquet, is because the other members of the ruling elite will make a big fuss about seeing me. My secret will be out and my life—_this life_, that I love—will be ruined. I'm asking you please, please just let me be Jack Hodgins who works in the lab."

They looked at each other, an understanding passing between the three. Booth nodded thoughtfully, a plan forming in his mind. The FBI labs were a little too busy lately. Perhaps they needed some outside help from a certain cranky scientist at the Jeffersonian….

~Q~

On the evening of the Jeffersonian's gala event, Booth watched Brennan turn and walk regally towards the limousine where Angela, Zack and Goodman were waiting. They were working together much more smoothly lately, fighting less viciously, but he was still madly attracted to her. Admiring the movement of her graceful legs, the narrow span of her waist and the fall of her rich, auburn hair, he allowed himself to enjoy the view until she exited the lab and disappeared. Once she'd slipped out the door, he turned to go with a grin. Sensing another grin directed his way, he lifted his eyes to meet those of Dr. Jack Hodgins laughing down at him from a work station on the lab's central platform.

Booth steeled himself for some well-earned mockery upon being caught admiring Brennan, but Hodgins let it go.

"Thank you again, for this." Hodgins lifted the kilo of what was likely cocaine. Gratitude held Hodgins's silence on the matter of a certain FBI agent ogling his boss from behind. The evidence could have been run at the FBI lab, but Booth had given Hodgins the excuse he needed to avoid the donor's banquet and all the fanfare his attendance—or refusal to attend—would have caused. The least Hodgins could do in return was refrain from calling Booth out on his blatant interest in Brennan's assets.

"It's no problem," Booth shrugged. "You can just pay me back later."

"Wait a minute!" Gesturing for Booth to wait a moment longer, Hodgins quickly locked the kilo up in a drawer and trotted down off the platform. "I need to ask you another favor."

One brow ticked up. "Another one."

"This one is easy. I just … please don't tell Brennan about me. I don't want her to know."

"That you're her boss?" Booth smirked. "Maybe it would do her some good, give her a little bit of humility to know that she has to answer to someone."

"No. She shouldn't answer to me. She shouldn't answer to anyone when it comes to the lab. Even Goodman defers to her."

"Goodman is her superior. He ordered her to go to Washington State with me."

Hodgins waved his hand dismissively. "That's administrative stuff. When it comes to the science, he lets her lead, as he should."

Booth found himself slipping into yet another wave of confusion where his understanding of Temperance Brennan was concerned. "How can she lead? She's terrible with people!"

"No, not in here." Hodgins gestured to the stairs, a subtle offer to continue the conversation in the more relaxed setting of the loft. They each poured a cup of stale coffee and took seats opposite each other.

"We're all scientists in here, even Angela to an extent. We all do our thing, run our tests and experiments, but it takes someone like Brennan to put it together. Goodman is an administrator, he can't do what she does. Neither can I. Nobody can."

Scoffing a little, Booth took a sip of the coffee and winced. It was too strong—and that was saying something considering the enamel-eroding acid the Army had claimed was coffee. Giving up on the cup immediately, he set it aside and considered what he'd just been told. He wasn't sure he understood what Hodgins meant. "What do you mean, she puts it together?"

"If you imagine that each one of us brings a piece of the puzzle, Brennan is the one who figures out where they go. Long before we have all the pieces, she already knows what it's going to be and what pieces we still have to find, and where we should look for them. She's the one who finishes the picture. We can't do it without her."

"I'm still not getting it," Booth admitted.

Hodgins leaned forward. "Okay, here are some examples for you. The Cleo Eller case? She put diatomaceous earth with something one of your suspects said and leaped to fish, the guy who kept fish. You remember that?"

Yes, Booth remembered. She'd run off half-drunk and half-cocked, and had shot the guy without warning. Granted, the suspect had threatened to kill her and she'd only pegged the guy in the calf. Still, the impulsive shooting had nearly netted her jail time and permanent banning from FBI casework. It was a miracle he'd managed to get the assault charges against Brennan dropped.

"And yesterday," Hodgins continued, "She takes one look at a broken pencil and figures out how little Charlie's ribs broke."

"Yeah, I was there," Booth pointed out.

"She does that sort of thing all the time," Hodgins explained. "People throw around the word genius all too easily, without knowing what it means. Zack has a ridiculously high IQ. I have a high IQ. But we can't do what Brennan does, we don't have that _genius_. You get what I'm saying?"

Booth was holding his head in his hand. "Not really, no."

"Well, you understand what IQ is, right?"

Still holding his head, he answered slowly. "A number that tells how smart a person is."

"It's a combination of numbers, actually: scores based on how accurately and quickly types of questions can be answered compared to other people, then adjusted for age. The typical IQ test measures computation speed, vocabulary and reading comprehension, logical reasoning, intuition, pattern recognition, visual and spatial awareness and rote memorization. Everyone has their unique strengths; people with higher IQ scores tend to be strong in all the areas being measured."

"So, a high IQ equals genius."

Hodgins shook his head. "Not exactly. High IQ just means really smart. Did well in just about every class, probably graduated college, able to learn fast and do well just about anywhere. There are many very smart people in this lab, including _you_, Booth."

"You're saying I'm a genius?" he laughed.

"No, because being a genius is more than being smart. It's more than remembering everything, or thinking fast. All of us here can do that. You can do that. A genius is something else entirely. What Brennan does is connect things that don't seem to have any connection. She sees a detailed pattern where the rest of us would just see random splotches of color. She pushes us to reveal the pattern hiding in the splotches, to bring out the truth."

"You're saying she uses her gut?" Booth attempted. He knew Brennan most certainly wouldn't agree with that terminology.

"No, not gut, not intuition the way you would define it. She uses evidence, definitely. It's just that she sees the whole of what the evidence is, collectively. It's like a puzzle where she can see the whole picture even when there are many pieces missing and the ones you have are scattered all over the table."

Booth's bewildered expression betrayed just how much he was not getting the point Hodgins was trying to make. The scientist sighed in frustration.

"You know, it's really hard to describe genius. Did you know it was once believed that Mozart wrote entire symphonies in a straight line down the paper? While composing, he supposedly heard every voice and instrument all at the same moment and wrote them all at once, instead of one single instrument after another, like the rest of us 'merely clever people' do. Imagine writing a letter or a story vertically, working down the side from left to right, completing multiple lines of text all at once instead of one sentence at a time. That myth about Mozart's process has been debunked, but it illuminates the aspect of genius that I'm trying to explain. That's sort of the way Brennan's mind works, like Mozart hearing the whole thing complete. She remembers random details and suddenly sees how they fit together, like seeing the whole page already written."

Shaking his head in confusion, Booth wasn't sure he could quite envision what Hodgins was trying to describe.

Maybe it was impossible to really describe in words what Brennan did—Booth would just have to keep watching and she would do it in front of him enough times that he'd finally get it. Hodgins shrugged, bringing his argument to a close. "I have money, but money does not make me a better scientist or a better visionary. Genius does, and that's what _she_ has. You keep working with her and you're going to see it, the way she just … _leaps_. It's phenomenal."

Forgetting he'd given up on the coffee, Booth reached for his cup again and regarded Hodgins curiously. "So, Brennan stays the boss then. Why does it matter if she knows you have money?"

"Because, I don't want her to think that I got this job using my wealth, or my connections. I respect her. I admire her—man, she is freaking _brilliant_. I want her to respect me because of what I can offer to this team; for what I _know_, not who I am. Surely you can understand that."

"You got a thing for her?" Booth teased. He aborted a sip of the coffee at the last second when a whiff of its acidic fumes reached his nose.

"For her brain, hell yeah. As a girlfriend, hell no." Hodgins laughed softly at the idea. "She is beautiful, I'll give you that. But, I think it would take a stronger man than me to hold her attention."

A stronger man? Wondering what that meant, Booth stood and dumped the coffee before he forgot again and poisoned himself with it. He quickly scrubbed out the cup, noting that Hodgins had gulped his own coffee down, straight and black.

"Need the caffeine hit," he grinned at Booth's shocked stare. Hodgins's cup followed Booth's into the drying rack.

Booth secretly disagreed that the always energetic 'bug and slime guy' needed any kind of additional stimulant.

"Maybe you're strong enough," Hodgins commented, catching Booth off guard as they descended back to the lab.

"Strong enough for what?" he asked warily.

"To be the man who's man enough for Katarina," Hodgins laughed. "You know, The Taming of the Shrew. It's not that 'the shrew' needed taming, it's that she needed a man who was strong enough to stand up to her, to meet her half way. I know that's not me, but you, G-man. You've got potential."

Booth found himself laughing. "If she heard you say that, she'd kick your ass."

"Yeah." His deep blue eyes sparkled with humor. "That's why she's never going to hear me say it."

~Q~

The conversation with Hodgins filled Booth's mind over the next couple of weeks. He still didn't understand what Hodgins had meant, other than the heartfelt request that Brennan never learn that Hodgins was the heir to one of the largest, most powerful fortunes in the world and, consequently, was one of the largest benefactors of the Jeffersonian. The opportunity to reach a full understanding of why Hodgins didn't want her to know came along during their next case, a mummified man discovered within the walls of a popular nightclub owned by one Randall Hall … followed by a woman discovered buried under the floor of a music studio built by that same Randall Hall.

In murder, there's no such thing as coincidence. So when Brennan and Zack had discovered two curious bone divots in two different places on the skeletons of two, unrelated victims found buried on Hall's two different properties, Booth didn't believe in that coincidence either. It all added up to one probability: Randall Hall had killed those two people.

Though they didn't have enough evidence to link Randall Hall to the murders and make an arrest, Booth's instincts were clamoring for affirmation. Persistence was called for if they were ever going to find the evidence that would pin down Hall. To that end, Booth and Brennan dropped by Hall's club one evening to rattle the doors and make idle threats of continuing harassment.

Inside the club Brennan was silent, her attention wandering in a way that might have suggested she wasn't fully aware of her surroundings, at least to those who didn't know better. In fact, her surroundings were precisely what she was diverting her considerable powers of observation towards. Booth knew she was running her eyes across every surface in the area, silently cataloging textures and protuberances. She did that a lot, he'd noticed. Wherever she was, Brennan was always observing, watching, and taking metaphorical notes. Somehow she would remember everything she saw and be able to recall and describe it flawlessly days or even weeks later.

Booth informed Randall Hall that his club was going to remain closed down as a crime scene, until evidence emerged that linked Hall to the bodies of DJ Mount and Eve Warren. Brennan's gaze wandered back to Hall and Booth and remained there. She'd sensed the increase of tension in the room and her alertness increased accordingly.

Furious at the loss of revenue from being closed down, Hall thumped Booth in the chest with the curved top of his cane. "I'm not someone you want to mess with."

Brennan's eyes narrowed. She looked at the cane thoughtfully.

Booth was almost amused. "Did you just poke me?"

He laughed at Hall's misplaced effort to intimidate him, then got up and directed his mockery of Hall towards Brennan in the form of a taunting question. "Did he just poke me, with his little stick?"

She didn't respond. Her watchful gaze remained fixed on the cane, on Hall. Her eyes flickered back and forth. Booth wondered what was going through her mind.

Hall growled, not bothering to hide his anger. "This is my place. I wanna _poke_ someone, I do it." He thrust the cane at Booth again.

Booth relieved Hall of the cane and threw him down. The bodyguard tried to step in with his gun, but Booth disarmed him all too easily and handed the weapon to Brennan, who had snapped out of her musings on the cane as soon as Booth moved toward Hall. To his growing surprise and respect, she'd instantly stepped into a covering stance as naturally as any trained agent. With the gun now trained on the bodyguard, Brennan had Booth's back protected.

"How easily do you think I scare?" Booth glared down at Hall, who was sprawled in a chair and glaring back. The cane still in hand, Booth lifted his knee and started to snap it in half. But he was stopped by Brennan's abrupt, loud cry.

"Hey, Booth! Don't break the cane. Arrest him and confiscate the cane as evidence."

Booth looked at her in bewilderment.

"I need the cane," she insisted.

Glancing from the cane to Hall, he couldn't figure out what she was thinking. "Arrest him for what? _He's_ the guy who pointed a gun at a federal agent." Booth nudged his chin towards the bodyguard, still held at bay by Brennan.

Brennan didn't know what charge to level against Hall, nor did she care. She shrugged her answer to Booth's impatient query. "Uttering threats or … smelling bad. Anything. It's the cane we want."

Booth looked down at the cane, then over at his determined partner. It wasn't making any sense to him, but something about her certainty made him decide to trust her. "Fine, here." He pushed the cane towards her and placed Randall Hall under arrest for assaulting a federal agent.

~Q~

"How did you know," he asked quietly.

Two hours later, they were alone on the platform, having returned to the lab after the arrest of Randall Hall. Brennan was bustling about while she prepared the micro-seal casts she'd just taken of the suspicious marks on the bones. By tomorrow she would use them for comparison with the impression she would be making from the walking stick once the FBI finished processing it into evidence. During the ride back from the FBI, she'd explained to Booth why she wanted the cane.

"How did I know what?" She sounded vaguely distracted, the vast bulk of her intellect focused on the task of comparing the bone dimples and documenting her findings. Once she'd taken the impression from the cane and compared all three marks, she would be sending the comparisons and her notes to the FBI with Booth, and she wanted to make sure everything was in order before releasing her findings.

Booth stepped to her side, feeling a jolt when he looked down at the elegant column of her neck as she bent over her work. He'd never imagined that he would find a woman's neck so alluring until he met Brennan, with her swan-like lines and graceful movements. When she wore her hair up like this, spilling out of a messy bun, he wanted nothing more than to trace his lips over the soft skin that usually hid under her hair. Maybe run his hands up her arms and pull her against him, nuzzle her ear and feel her shiver under his touch.

Shaking his head at the inappropriate direction his thoughts were taking—_I have a girlfriend!_—he forced himself to stop thinking about the impossible. There was Tessa now, and even if Tessa weren't an issue, Booth knew that kind of involvement with Brennan would be a huge mistake.

He drew a steadying breath and tried to clarify his question. "How did you know to grab that cane?"

Pausing to look up, her brow furrowed as she considered. She wasn't really sure of the 'how' of her process, now that he'd forced her to grapple with it. The silver-headed cane was curved and ended in a sculpted dog. The tip of the silver dog's nose was rounded, it's cropped ears forming twin prick-points. She'd seen it tapping against Booth's sternum and the way it hit, with the resulting indentation it could leave behind if it hit hard enough….

"It's the most likely source of the bone dimples," she finally shrugged. "I could see the mark it would leave."

He was still amazed. "But it didn't leave a mark. It barely touched me."

"What is it that you want to know," she inquired. "How I saw it?"

"Yes!"

Pursing her lips, Brennan straightened and locked her rainwater eyes on his. "How do you see it?"

He was lost. "What?"

Her eyes entranced him. That was happening with ever greater frequency these days. Brennan would look at him with those striking eyes, Athena's eyes, and he would find himself falling into them. Falling into her. He wasn't sure if something was happening between the both of them, or if it was only happening to him. The only inkling that it could be mutual was the way she would gaze back, seeming just as entranced, until something inevitably broke their gazes apart. At times he found himself wondering what would happen if they failed to be interrupted. (And then he would flush in guilty realization that in those moments, he'd once again completely forgotten the existence of Tessa.)

She was speaking, pulling his attention back from its wanderings and onto her query. "How do you know when people are lying, or when they're having affairs? Can you explain it to me?"

"Uh…" That was impossible to explain to anyone, much less to someone who was as blind to behavioral cues as Temperance Brennan. For all her brilliance, understanding people was her one weakness, the mediating trait that made her mercifully human. He tried anyway. "You know, the eyes. Fidgeting. Where someone looks." He trailed off, knowing that the answer wouldn't even begin to untangle it for her.

But she hadn't expected it to. Rather, she knew her own ignorance would content him with his. "So, you just know? It's too complicated to break down into a couple of steps that would enlighten someone like me."

"Yeah, I guess." He frowned, feeling vaguely guilty. Had he just insulted her? Himself?

"Right." She smiled, nodded to herself. "Exactly."

"Exactly." He stilled, suddenly confused. "Wait. What? What am I agreeing to?"

She sighed as if speaking to a dull-witted child. "That I can't explain to you how I knew Hall's cane left those marks. I have years of training and observation that inform what I perceive. I just … saw it. The same way you seem to see when people are lying."

"Oh, right." He shook his head. Hodgins' words floated just out of reach, illuminating what she was trying to explain. _"What Brennan does is connect things that don't seem to have any connection."_

"Now I get it," he suddenly realized. There was no easy way to explain genius and that was made it so beautiful. So extraordinary. Just like she was.

A swift grin lit up her face, lending a rare, mischievous cast to her expression. "I would very much like to know how you do it, how you read people; it's reassuring that you also want to know how _I_ do it, how I process evidence. Anthropologically speaking, the sharing of mutual curiosity into the skill set of the other makes us equals."

Her words ignited a flare of elation in him, his heart tripping into a gallop as her approval registered. She had basically stated they were equals, that in his own way, he was as smart as she was. Booth understood, in that moment, what Hodgins had meant when he'd admitted to having 'a thing' for Brennan's brain, and why Hodgins wanted Brennan's respect as an intellectual peer. If someone of such unparalleled intelligence as she thought him any kind of an equal, wasn't that the highest compliment he could hope for?

"Partners," he affirmed breathlessly. His eyes poured chocolate warmth into hers because just as suddenly, he'd realized something else: she wanted him to think highly of her, too. _She admires me._ The thought flooded his entire being with delight. His answering smile was the one that typically turned solid feminine bones into gelatin, and he knew even the ultra-rational Dr. Brennan wasn't immune to it. "We're partners, Bones."

She was smiling back and their eyes coupled with an almost palpable intensity.

Across the lab, unnoticed by the two standing toe-to-toe on the platform, the doors whispered open. Tessa spotted them immediately, taking in how close the partners stood and the way that they looked at each other. The electricity crackling between them made Tessa's salutary smile fade into a resigned sigh. Just partners. Right….

A few hours later, Booth received a disappointed phone call from his girlfriend. She couldn't go with him to Jamaica after all—a big case had come up at work.

~Q~

* * *

**Author's Note:** The idea that Mozart wrote whole symphonies straight down the page came from a letter published in 1815 by Friedrich Rochlitz. (That letter was later proven to have been forged.) In the letter, Mozart supposedly described hearing the entire piece complete in his head such that he could look at it 'as at a statue or fine picture' and then record it straight down the page.

In writing this, I reflected a great deal on what it means to be a 'genius,' vs. to have a genius IQ. Brennan is often described as being a genius; however, it is definitely stated that Zach has an IQ that is much higher than 163 (Woman in the Car) and that places him quite firmly in the high genius range. Furthermore, it's extremely likely that Hodgins is also at a genius IQ level going just by his education and skills—he has three PhD's in wildly different subjects—and by the fact that he makes great leaps of insight just as Brennan does. Cam and Angela may not be geniuses, but both are probably well above average (or as Hodgins described here, "very smart.")

Then there's Booth…. Just because he doesn't have a Ph.D and an IQ score to wave around, that doesn't mean he's not incredibly intelligent as well. The intuition he uses, the way he 'knows' things without quite knowing how he knows it, is actually one facet of intelligence that IQ tests attempt to measure. At the very least, Booth is "very smart" just like the others-what he lacks is an extensive education, not intelligence.

So, what does it mean to be a genius? Why is Brennan the only one so described? The only conclusion I could come to is that genius is hard to define, but we know it when we see it. Kind of like beauty, art, and, er, … pornography. (Hey, Booth said it first!)


	3. Goodman On the Pursuit of Truth

**Disclaimer:** I do not have any rights to these characters, but I'm borrowing them without permission anyway. Credit for some of the plot and/or dialogue in this chapter goes to Hart Hanson (Man in the Fallout Shelter) and especially to Elizabeth Benjamin and Noah Hawley (Man in the Morgue).

**Author's Tease:** One of the topics that you read about in this chapter will come up again in the next chapter. Can you guess what it's going to be...?

* * *

_Catalyst in the Partnership_

**_3. _**

**_Goodman – On the Pursuit of Truth_**

_"You are the more rational, reasoned, empirical scientist. And you care."_

One of the only bright spots during this horrid Christmas quarantine had been the unexpected yet pleasantly sanctioned hallucinatory effects of the anti-fungal drug cocktail doled out by the CDC. If the government made you high, that made the 'trip' legitimate, right? No crime since it was on Uncle Sam's dime. The swirling lights and feelings of euphoria were finally slipping away, leaving Seeley Booth drowsy and contemplative. Faces brushed across his consciousness, the people who mattered most at Christmas and who he wouldn't get to see this year. Parker. Pops. Jared? Yeah, sure. He loved his little brother even if they were at odds on occasion. Rebecca. Hmm… Once she would have been on his list, but the way she dangled time with Parker as a threat left a sour feeling of regret where she was concerned.

His mother was gone, lost years ago. His dad. Booth frowned. He hadn't seen his father in more than a decade.

Brennan. Bones.

Thoughts of his partner surprised him. They barely knew each other in personal terms, although he was coming to appreciate her as more than just a colleague. He hadn't wanted to bring her along with him into the field—she'd certainly forced that—but in the intervening months he'd discovered she made a remarkable partner. She was clever, observant, seemed to know the reasons behind every natural occurrence and the cultural roots of every practice known to man. Talking to Brennan was like holding a conversation with an Encyclopedia (a snarky, sexy encyclopedia with a tendency to argue as well as inform). Further, she had a knack for distilling convoluted issues into their basic elements with the startling clarity of the innocent. How many times had Brennan floored him with her Emperor-has-no-clothes insights?

It was growing ever more complicated, what he thought about Brennan. The mad attraction he'd been feeling for her from the beginning had finally begun to go underground thanks to his constant vigilance. He refused to allow safe harbor for any untoward thoughts where she was concerned, and the result, mercifully, was that those jarring moments of pure physical awareness were disrupting him less and less often. Now that her other attributes were unfurling, the sides of her that he'd missed because he was too busy trying not to stare with his mouth open, he found she was rather fascinating.

There seemed to be nothing Brennan didn't know something about, except for pop culture and important things like hockey or baseball. Mention a celebrity or spring training and she would go perfectly blank. With most other topics she would start an impromptu debate, whether Booth was game for it or not. Half the time he suspected she took her controversial stances on purpose, just to irritate him. Then they would go rounds, half fighting and half laughing until one of them would finally pounce with an unassailable zinger that ended the session; then they'd meet for drinks after work to pick it up again with some other topic. And so it went, round after round, day after day.

They'd solved every case they'd worked together so far—a remarkable feat considering the amount of energy they expended on bickering. Booth was starting to wonder how he'd ever managed to close an investigation without her, but shuddered at the thought of ever letting Brennan know that. She was arrogant enough as it was.

She still drove him crazy, but he was starting to care about her. He liked her, prickly thorns and all. On those rare days when they didn't see each other, he found himself missing their friction and the sparks it generated. Missing those sparkling eyes and the genuine smile that Brennan saved just for him. Missing her sharp wit and even sharper tongue. He even missed the way she could puncture his ego like an over-filled balloon and leave him utterly deflated, with just one well-aimed remark. He would patch the hole and charge right back in for more.

And he was finally beginning to understand her quirks—he even would have bragged about that … right up until tonight. She'd eschewed any efforts at holiday celebrating and seemed particularly unpleasant when the very word was mentioned. He suspected her atheism made her hate Christmas, yet that didn't seem quite … rational.

Like it or not, he was spending Christmas with his partner. Since the lockdown, after hissing that she'd wanted to be in Niger, Brennan had begun snarling invectives about the falsity of Christmas and all its trappings. Scrooge and the Grinch had nothing on Temperance Brennan when it came to ruining Christmas for everyone else. Booth wasn't sure if he wanted to know what her problem was, or if it would be safer to let it go. If he was honest with himself, however, he knew he couldn't let it go. Her lashing out struck him as an indication of pain, similar to the way an animal in a trap would take swipes at anyone attempting to free it. So….

"Hey, Goodman. You awake?"

The older man grunted. "I'm trying not to be."

At least he has the couch, Booth groused silently. Out loud, he asked the question that was plaguing him. "Bones doesn't like Christmas?"

Goodman drew a breath as he considered his reply. Brennan's aversion to the holidays was legendary, but from what little he knew of her past, it was also understandable. He settled for a non-answer that was every bit as revealing for what it didn't say. "In the past, Dr. Brennan has undertaken philanthropic work recovering the victims of genocide during the holidays."

Booth stared up at the ceiling, mulling that over. "That's a horrible way to spend Christmas."

"I imagine being slaughtered for your ethnicity is far more unpleasant," Goodman observed dryly.

"So you're saying she leaves every year?"

"That is correct."

"Well, why does she go?"

The older man shifted uncomfortably on the sofa, hesitating for a moment. Finally he decided Agent Booth needed to know, since it was unlikely Brennan would tell him herself. "Dr. Brennan has no family. Being alone among strangers is easier than being alone among colleagues who have families they'll be spending time with over the holidays."

"Why doesn't she have family?" Booth gasped. Angela and even Brennan herself had said she'd been in the foster system. Surely she at least had a foster family…?

"I'm afraid that is delving into personal confidences, therefore you will understand my hesitance in sharing private information. If you wish to discuss it with Dr. Brennan, I'm sure she will enlighten you on her situation. If she desires you to know."

"But … digging up corpses on Christmas?" He couldn't wrap his mind around it.

"Agent Booth, Temperance doesn't see it that way, nor should you. The victims of genocide have had their lives, their very _existence_, stolen from them. What greater gift could be given than to restore the forgotten to memory, to return to them some measure of the justice they were denied?"

"Well, when you put it that way…." Booth shifted restlessly, hating the sleeping bag almost as much as his back hated the hard cement floor. He acknowledged what Goodman had told him. "She goes because it's the right thing to do."

And because she had nothing better to do. Nowhere to be. No one to be with. He was starting to see that now.

"As an anthropologist and a scientist, Temperance seeks the truth wherever it may hide. Not many are willing or able to do what she does. In a way, it would be more selfish of her to remain here simply because it's Christmas."

"Yeah, she does have a mania for the truth," Booth agreed. "At first, I hated that about her."

Goodman rolled to his side, shocked. "Really?"

Sheepishly, he nodded. "We sorta came to blows over it."

"You argued."

Booth laughed. "She called me a bully with a badge right before she hauled off and sucker-punched me. But … I think I kind of deserved it."

"And why is that?"

"Bones thought we didn't have enough evidence to charge a suspect; I thought the circumstantial evidence was plenty. She couldn't see how I could know something without the facts to back me up. But the reason she hit me was because we argued in front of a victim's family and I dragged her out of the room by her arm."

"Hmmm." Goodman's non-committal noise provided an eloquent agreement to Brennan's point of view that day.

"It's frustrating, though. Bones doesn't believe anything unless it's staring her right in the face. And even then she questions it."

Goodman stroked his chin thoughtfully. "It is the nature of a scientist to demand proof before drawing a conclusion. And also the justice system, as you're well aware. Having Dr. Brennan at your side pursuing the proof you need to obtain a conviction is a great boon, an advantage you should take delight in, rather than umbrage."

"Umbrage? What is that, some type of cheese?"

Goodman's chuckle throbbed quietly. "To take umbrage means to take offense."

"Why didn't you just say that?" Booth shook his head slowly. It wasn't just Brennan, it seemed none of these squints spoke plain English. "Anyway, once she gets an idea in her head, Bones just won't let it go. Like a dog with a bone. Ha."

"Hmmm. Yes, well, that tenacity that so disturbs you happens to be the very reason I hired Dr. Brennan over a dozen applicants who were ostensibly much better qualified."

That came as a mild surprise. Booth thought it over curiously, wondering just why Goodman would think Brennan's most annoying quality was worth more than experience.

Goodman almost seemed to hear the unspoken question. "You might have noticed I give her free reign in the lab—there's a reason for that. The combination of observational genius, unflinching honesty and passionate persistence is rare. She sees what no one else does and won't back down from a fight—academic or otherwise. All qualities which I find admirable despite the occasional headaches they engender."

"Headaches?" Booth barked a wry laugh. "She gives me migraines. She's impossible. Especially about Christmas."

"Agent Booth, Dr. Brennan is not trying to be difficult. Her problem with communicating with the average person stems from the very skill set that makes her such a tremendous asset. She is highly intelligent, rational, and honest. In any given social situation, Temperance does not respond in the typical way the so-called 'man on the street' would do. Where others might tell little white lies, Temperance tells the truth. Where others might act on hastily drawn conclusions, Temperance holds back and waits for evidence. Where less scrupulous individuals such as Michael Stires would swindle, cheat or abuse trust, Temperance is not even capable of imagining such behavior. It makes her truly unique, and uniquely vulnerable."

"Vulnerable how?"

"She is unable to detect or anticipate deceit in others. You saw that with Dr. Stires. She is painfully aware of this weakness on her part and compensates for it by being slow to trust. However, once someone does earn her trust, then they are in a position to abuse her because she can't foresee dishonesty. For want of a better word, she is an innocent."

Innocent. Not in the virginal sense, no. And certainly a woman who stood knee-deep in genocidal graves was well aware of the evil that men do. But … when it came to the people she trusted, Brennan was innocent. Naïve. She relaxed her guard once she trusted someone and that is when a betrayal struck her the hardest, because she had no way to see it coming. Booth had watched it unfold with Stires.

While Booth's initial hostility towards Stires had stemmed from what Brennan had derisively termed "alpha-male territoriality," the squints had all banded around her for another reason. Once Temperance Brennan let someone in, she was at their mercy. Being unable to read people, she missed the signals that might warn others of potential danger and consequently her trust was occasionally misplaced. They'd seen the risk that Brennan was blind to and so they'd closed ranks around her to push Stires back, just the same way they'd once closed around her and pushed Booth back.

He was starting to understand it now, the reasons he'd had to work so hard to gain her trust, and theirs.

~Q~

The moment that changed the course of their partnership happened later the next day. The CDC and the Jeffersonian had worked out an arrangement to bring family to the lab for a quarantined visit on Christmas Eve. Booth had enjoyed the all-too-brief minutes he'd been able to spend with Parker, and he'd spent some time talking to Pops on the phone. After ending a twenty minute conversation consisting mainly of listening to his elderly grandfather mutter about the difficulties of living alone these days, Booth had wandered into the lab.

Zack was standing at the doors, bringing his hand up to press lightly against the glass with each member of his enormous, loving family. More than ten people stood there, all glad to see the young grad student and clearly wishing he were able to return home with them. Then a movement at the edge of the platform drew Booth's attention. He saw Temperance Brennan standing in the shadows, watching Zack's reunion and silently dashing tears from her eyes. She stood in the shadows watching someone else be loved by their family, then walked away without ever taking her turn at the glass doors.

No one came to visit her.

Pain gripped Booth's innards, the visceral realization that she had no one in this world outside the Jeffersonian's medico-legal lab who cared about her. The tragic irony was, being locked up in the lab had given his partner her first 'Christmas' in fifteen years but it wasn't a comfort. The only thing it did for her was remind her of everything she'd lost that Christmas as a teen. Christmas showed her what she didn't have, what she thought she could never have.

So of course she hated it. Who wouldn't?

Was it any wonder she spent this painful time that reminded her of her own lost family by restoring the lost families of others? It made perfect sense that she ran away to far-flung hellholes and buried herself with the only other souls who knew the same kind of soul-splintering loss. She thought only the bones of the forgotten dead could understand her.

"Bones…."

Feeling tears springing to his eyes as he watched his partner cry in the shadows, Seeley Booth whispered a vow. As long as he was alive, Temperance Brennan would never be alone again. She would never be left vulnerable and unprotected. "I'll take care of you," he whispered. "Whether you want me to or not."

~Q~

And he did. Booth warned off a violent gang leader with lethal threats. He dropped everything to rush to the Nevada desert when she asked for help. He became her personal bodyguard and dragged himself out of a hospital bed to save her from the rogue FBI Agent, Jamie Kenton. There was nothing he wouldn't do to keep her safe.

~Q~

The call from the Jeffersonain reached Booth's cell phone just a little past eight in the morning. He recognized the area code and trunk line of the number—all 202-753 numbers originated at the Jeffersonian—but the extension was unfamiliar. He was surprised to find it was Goodman calling.

"Agent Booth, I'm sorry to disturb you."

"It's no problem, I'm just a bit surprised." The source of the call was unusual enough, but sensing the tension in the administrator's voice, Booth felt a jolt of concern. He set down his pen and pushed aside the expenses report he'd been putting off all week. "Is everything okay?"

"I just received a disturbing phone call from Dr. Brennan."

Concern grew into worry. "Is Bones all right?"

"She was supposed to catch her return flight from New Orleans right about now, but something has happened. She called me to let me know why she wouldn't be returning as scheduled. Temperance is en route to the hospital—"

Before he could finish, Booth's worry erupted into panic. "What happened? Where is she?"

"She's at Tulane Medical Center in New Orleans. It seems she's been assaulted and has suffered a few injuries. But that's not the main concern."

"What is it?" Booth was already standing, already gathering up the paperwork he'd been laboring over and shoving it haphazardly back into random folders. He was going to New Orleans on the next flight.

"She seems to have lost her memory of yesterday. And she woke up covered in blood."

Icy dread clenched at Booth. His partner was alone, bloody, with no memory?! Bloody hell! Hadn't he promised himself he would never let her be alone? _I shouldn't have let her talk me out of going down there with her_. The stubborn woman was a magnet for trouble. Cursing, Booth snatched up his jacket and started walking towards Cullen's office.

"Would it be possible for you to go down to New Orleans? This is a personal request."

Not telling Goodman that he was already halfway out the door, Booth felt curiosity nibbling at him. "Why do you want _me_ to go?"

"She's alone. Someone needs to be there for her. Shouldn't that someone be you?"

"What about Angela," Booth blurted. Angela was her best friend. If Bones was hurt, she might prefer feminine companionship.

"Angela is a dear and loyal friend, to be sure, but I suspect Temperance is going to need someone stronger. She needs you, Agent Booth. I think you know that."

The pitch of Goodman's voice implied a deeper connection existed between the partners, one that Goodman was fully aware of. It caught Booth by surprise, hearing his feelings about protecting Brennan acknowledged in Goodman's request. Goodman was unmistakably placing Brennan into Booth's care, formally asking the FBI agent to do what Booth himself had voluntarily vowed to do months ago.

He'd reached Cullen's floor and stood just outside the door to his office. "Yes, sir. I do know that. I'll get there as fast as I can."

Ending the call, Booth entered Cullen's office and began explaining the "family emergency" that had just come up. Bones was his family, had been since he'd made his vow at Christmas, so he didn't feel like it was fully a lie when he told Cullen his family was the reason he needed to take a few personal days.

By the time he was hauling himself and a hastily packed overnight bag into the overhead storage bin two hours later, Booth had managed to get Brennan to pick up her cell phone. She'd sounded calm, pained and just slightly fearful while insisting he didn't need to come.

"Bones!"

"Goodman called you," she complained, the dull rasp of her voice betraying she hadn't been offered any painkillers yet.

Booth couldn't help the worry that bled through his words. "He said you don't remember anything."

"That's not accurate. I remember everything except for yesterday, apparently."

Biting his tongue to keep from voicing irritation at the unnecessary precision, he asked. "What caused you to lose a day, do you know?"

"I have a head injury." Through the telephone connection he almost saw her wince just from the hitch in her voice that accompanied the rustling of movement. "And probably a broken wrist."

"Bones, take the medicine they give you," he scolded, suspecting she was resisting relief in her typically obstinate way.

"They don't give pain meds before evaluating for a head injury," she informed him tiredly. "I'm still in the queue for an MRI."

If she hadn't been hurting so much, Booth knew he'd have gotten an entire lecture complete with diagrams. Her lack of enthusiasm in arguing with him made his worry increase. "Where are you going to be in about three hours?"

Another exhausted and pain-filled sigh. "Probably still here in the emergency department. They're backed up and low on resources."

"Look, I'm about to get on the plane. I'll be there in three hours."

Her protest cracked in his ear. "Booth, no. You don't need to come."

"I'm already on my way, Bones, like it or not." He hung up the phone before she could argue him out of it.

~Q~

When he finally reached her, Brennan was finally on the verge of being discharged after nearly six hours in the emergency room. Following the trail of Brennan's lost memories had eventually led them back to Dr. Graham LeGiere's place, where Brennan vaguely recalled she'd been invited to dinner.

The front door was unlocked and once inside, something triggered a flashing memory in his partner. He saw it flicker in her darkening eyes. She had started upstairs, her face chalk-white under the vivid bruise decorating her forehead. Booth had noticed the smell even before they got all the way up. The cloying, unmistakable scent of incipient decay.

"Something bad happened here and, I got away."

That's what she'd said, eyes wide and the remnants of panic drifting across her frozen features when she glided knowingly down the corridor. As if Brennan knew what she would see once she stepped through the nearly closed bedroom door, she'd held back. Booth had gone in instead.

The scene in Graham LeGiere's bedroom was straight out of a Hollywood horror film.

Blood, pooled and splashed and dribbled. A man's body hoisted up two feet off the floor and staked to the wall with glittering, ceremonial knifes. A gory crucifixion, magnified by the skinning and flaying of flesh such that the man was unrecognizable because his face had been stripped away. Strange symbols smeared in blood around his body were equally obscure. _Ten years doing this job and I have __**never**__ seen anything like this,_ Booth had shuddered.

Calling the police had seemed the right thing to do, until Homicide Detective Rose Harding started asking unanswerable questions and leveling her suspicions at Brennan. Then had come the absolute worst moment, when Booth had spotted something on the floor near a hall table that sent his innards into a nosedive. The round metal disk matched the one Brennan had shown him while she lamented losing its mate just that morning.

Scooping the incriminating earring up nervously the moment Harding's back was turned, he'd hustled Brennan out of there and back to her hotel as fast as he possibly could. The moment he recognized her jewelry on the floor, Booth had realized they were going to find Brennan's blood at Graham's house since that's where her earring had been ripped out of her ear. They were possibly going to find Graham's blood on Brennan's clothes that she'd left at the hospital for testing. Harding would be here as soon as those blood tests yielded results.

Tense with guilt and apprehension, he now found himself pacing her lovely green hotel room like a caged tiger, knowing that at any moment a knock was going to sound on the door. Booth watched Brennan slowly walk over to her bed, her ordinary agility hampered by lingering pain and exhaustion. She'd received a brutal beating, her injuries clearly defensive rather than offensive. It was something, but probably not enough to placate Harding's suspicions.

Unable to shake the dread that was closing in, he could only hope she would remember something that could exonerate her. He needed her to remember fast, before the local police arrived to take her in. "So do you remember anything else that could help us out?"

Wincing, nervous herself, Brennan perched on the foot of her still-made bed and admitted, "It could have been _me_."

Mistaking her meaning, Booth thought Brennan was remembering being assaulted. That she meant _she_ might have been the one who ended up pinned to a wall and skinned alive. He paused and glanced over at her hopefully. "Do you remember that?" If she remembered who had attacked her they could send Detective Harding on her way to arrest the culprits and head back to DC.

But of course it wasn't going to be that easy. As usual, Brennan meant something else entirely.

"Look at it objectively," she explained wearily. "Graham LeGiere was killed between 11 pm Tuesday and 3 am Wednesday. Not only do I not have an alibi, I … I can't even explain to _myself_ where I was. It could have been me."

Brennan remembered just about everything she saw and rarely forgot anything she'd done. Thus, not remembering the events of an entire day had her spooked like nothing before. Sensing Booth's apprehension and grappling with the holes in her mind, Brennan had reasoned objectively that she had no defense. The vulnerability was frightening to both of them, and seeing how uneasy her partner had become in the last hour certainly wasn't helping. Brennan trusted Booth to be her barometer and every reading she took today signaled storms ahead.

Still, Brennan looked utterly surprised when Booth laughed at her suggestion that she could actually be guilty of the vicious murder and dismissed it immediately. There was no doubt in his mind. "No it couldn't."

Thoroughly confused by his certainty, she could hardly form the question. "Yes—No. How do you know?"

How did he know? He almost laughed again, the question was so absurd. Booth paced between the sofa and the French doors to the balcony, putting the evidence of her together in his mind. A woman who pursued the truth of murdered masses, would suddenly turn psychotic and slaughter a man who did the same work? A woman who had spent a full night bent over the shattered bones of a murdered woman, lovingly reconstructing her skull so she could be identified, would then strip the face away from a man and stake him to his bedroom wall? A woman who didn't believe in any god or religion would smear Voodoo symbols in blood? A world-renowned forensic anthropologist who specialized in investigating murders couldn't come up with a better way to dispose of a body than to leave it bizarrely displayed in full view?

Not possible.

She had been there, of that Booth had no doubt. But Brennan herself having killed LeGiere like that...? No way. "I just know, okay? I'd bet my professional career on it."

Thinking of the earring tucked into his pocket, he muttered under his breath, "I already did."

She heard him but didn't know what he meant. "What?"

"Nothing."

Uneasily, Brennan persisted. "What did you do?"

He pushed her back impatiently. "Bones? Stop! This is the last time and place that you want to be rational, okay? Let's just be 'wildly emotional' and assume that you didn't psychotically murder a coworker who invited you over for dinner."

There was such a thing as being too objective, Booth thought darkly. As time slipped by, Booth was growing increasingly agitated, even a little angry with her. He knew people, he knew _her_, and he knew with utter certainty that she did _not_ crucify a man and skin him in a voodoo ritual murder. Yet this was one situation where Booth was sure that her veneration of impartiality and the truth was going to get her into even deeper trouble. She had shown no discretion or sense of self-preservation when it came to Detective Harding and the New Orleans Police Department.

Recalling his conversation with Goodman months ago, Booth knew Brennan was heading the wrong way with Harding, because she'd worked with the detective and thus she expected Harding to proceed with absolute integrity. That was the reason she simply didn't grasp how much she was putting herself at risk. Brennan believed Harding was a good cop with good intentions, a woman who would pursue the truth with Brennan's own single-minded determination. If Brennan truly hadn't done it, she had nothing to fear. Right?

Wrong.

Because Harding was a cop—out to get a collar and a conviction, not necessarily a lofty 'truth' that might not stand up in a courtroom. Brennan fit the emerging picture and so, Brennan was going to hang. The noose was closing around her neck already. Booth could see it even if Brennan couldn't.

The mood suddenly changed from dread to bewilderment, however, when he spotted a blackened pouch on the bed behind her. It was laying on her pillow. "What's _that_?"

Caught off-kilter by the sudden shifting of topic, she looked at him blankly. "What?"

"That!"

She looked to where he was pointing and Brennan's expression changed to a puzzled curiosity. Getting up gingerly, Brennan walked to the side of her bed and picked it up. A surprisingly squeamish noise escaped her as she examined it. "Eww…"

"Another voodoo dumpling?" Someone was framing her. Booth cringed, realizing someone had been _in her room_. All manner of horrid assaults she might have fallen prey to entered his mind, making his hair stand on end. They had stalked her, injured her, framed her, robbed her very mind of its memories. And they were still out there, whoever the hell they were, watching and waiting. Booth moved toward her on pure instinct, putting himself between his vulnerable partner and the door.

In her single-minded pursuit of the truth, who had she frightened enough to cause all of this effort to destroy her memory, her credibility and her professional reputation? How was he going to keep her safe when he didn't even know who the most dangerous threat was, a hidden voodoo killer or a cynically determined homicide detective.

Oblivious to the tension consuming her companion, Brennan opened the black pouch carefully, pawing through it and conveying its inventory in the same detached, clinical voice that she used in the lab. "Some kind of flesh. And these are seashells. … Leather, I think."

She pulled out a small, white object with a pointed tip. It looked like a tooth.

Horrified, Booth gasped, "Is that a _human_ tooth?"

She held it towards the light, assessing it rapidly. "Yes. A canine."

At that very moment, with thoughts of violent threats against her still dancing in his mind, the door crashed open. Booth drew his service weapon and pivoted in the blink of an eye, placing himself automatically between Brennan and danger before the nature of the threat had even fully registered.

Detective Harding and two other uniformed officers tumbled in and reacted quite understandably with agitation when they found a gun leveled at them. Harding's pistol pointed unerringly at Booth's head and she spoke with the gritty calm of experience. "Put down your weapon, Agent Booth."

Too many things were going wrong all at once and he sorely needed time to catch up. "Put down _your_ weapon. There's no threat from us."

Brennan was briefly disoriented again as well, looking from Booth to Harding and processing what was happening. She swiftly concluded Harding must have come to arrest her for Graham's murder, and Booth was putting himself in danger defending her. He wouldn't stand down, which was going to force Harding to either arrest him too, or worse, to shoot him. The other officers had also drawn their weapons, making this fight three against one.

Harding sounded tense when she pointed out Booth's obvious misreading of the threat he posed. "You're holding a _gun_ on me."

"Yeah, well, my finger here is not on the trigger." He wiggled his index to demonstrate. "It's the best I can do under the circumstances."

Harding kept up the pretence of a hard glare while she assessed the situation. She realized he was not a criminal but a Federal law enforcement officer. He had the right and responsibility to carry his gun and plenty of training on how and when to use it properly. Furthermore, given she had just broken through the door and crashed into his partner's hotel room, there was reasonable grounds for him to have drawn his weapon in self defense and protection of the civilian standing behind him. At the moment, he hadn't broken any laws or stepped out of line. But that moment was passing.

Now that she had been identified, he should stand down. She suspected, however, that it wasn't going to be Special Agent Booth who showed trust first. Sensing this man would do anything to protect his 'partner' but that he otherwise wasn't a threat to her, Harding sighed and did the only thing that would get them all out of this stand-off bullet-free. She relaxed and capitulated. "Holster your weapons," she instructed the officers with her.

Booth's body seemed to melt just a little in relief as he put his own gun away.

"I'm here to arrest Dr. Brennan for the murder of Graham LeGiere."

That relaxation hadn't had much time to settle in. Stepping towards Harding, keeping her away from Brennan, Booth registered his complaint. "Whoa, that's not going to happen."

For her part, Harding played sarcastic and confident with practiced ease. "Oh, I'm pretty sure it is."

Brennan spoke up at last from behind, reminding Booth that all circumstances were aligned and arrowing towards her like runway lights. She sounded resigned. "I told you, Booth."

Yes, she'd been the first to vocalize it, but he wasn't letting her be carted off to jail just so she could win the debate. Now thoroughly annoyed but genuinely terrified for her underneath the harsh words, he hissed at her. "Bones, _please_. For just once in your life will you _be quiet_!"

She gazed back, mystified by his mood, but mercifully kept silent. His mind was racing, piecing together what little they knew with what Harding may have discovered on her own. The notion that Brennan had actually killed LeGiere never entered his mind, but Booth knew she'd been at LeGiere's home and Harding had threatened to arrest her if even a speck of dust put Brennan at the scene.

Harding smirked a bit at the exchange between the partners. Brennan had seemed cool and professional all throughout the previous two weeks, but since this morning she had turned vague and clueless. In charity, Harding might be tempted to blame the head injury that she clearly had sustained—no one could fake a bruise that livid. The amnesia story sounded made up, but Brennan's behavior _had_ changed: did that mean she really did have a seriously brain-altering injury, or was she an Oscar-contender for 2006?

_Not for me to decide_, Harding reminded herself. She would note it in the arrest report and let a jury sort it out. Meanwhile, she had an arrest to perform and there was a warning to give. "That's good advice, because everything you say can and will be held against you in a court of law."

Abruptly she broke off the Miranda warning when she saw Brennan was holding a black pouch in one hand and a tooth in the other. "What is _that_?!"

Far too helpfully, the genius doctor handed it right over. "Uh, I found it on my pillow."

Not nearly as naïve as his partner, Booth nearly choked on his sudden desire to arrest her himself and haul her off to Federal detention for her own good. "Bones!" It was already too late. He groaned in irritation as Harding took the voodoo pouch, wrinkling her nose in distaste. Like a lamb to the slaughter, Brennan was going to cooperate herself right into the electric chair.

"Thank you, Dr. Brennan," Harding purred.

Booth regrouped quickly, suddenly hoping he actually could find an excuse to intervene and arrest Brennan himself. At least that way he could keep Harding away from her while he found a way to prove her innocence. "What's the probable cause?"

The answer was pretty much what he expected. "Traces of Dr. Brennan's blood in LeGiere's home. LeGiere's blood on her clothing from the clinic."

Sounding skeptical, knowing there had to be more, he asked. "Is that it?"

Her sarcastic reply showed she'd heard his unstated hope loud and clear. Harding was onto him. "All I'm prepared to share with the _Federal Government_."

Her meaningful emphasis on Federal Government was intended to remind Booth that he was officially an FBI Agent from Washington DC who had no jurisdiction or other interest in her small-town murder case. She was extending him a professional courtesy by telling him her intentions, but would not tolerate any interference regardless of the personal relationship between the partners. "Now please, step away from my collar."

Booth shook his head, knowing he'd just jumped onto thin ice with both feet. "I'm afraid I can't let that happen."

Everyone in the room heard the ominous cracks as Booth jumped, including Brennan. His face had darkened, menace emerging as his body tensed and the fingers of his right hand twitched in preparation. Seeing Booth heading to jail right beside her for obstruction of justice or assaulting an officer, she abruptly stepped around Booth's right side and walked toward Harding with her hands extended, surrendering herself before Booth could cause himself any actual trouble.

"Bones, jeeze!" He was furious with her for once again acting on impulse.

But she was calm and oddly confident. "It's better if nobody else dies before we get to the bottom of this."

Booth actually smacked himself in the forehead, needing to discharge the aggression that had built up and had nowhere to go. He was beside himself, worrying about her and wanting to throttle her at the same time. "Well, you know what? I wasn't planning on dying."

Now that Booth's dark threat had retreated a bit, Harding allowed herself to relax. Watching the pair of them was amusing, she thought as she cuffed Dr. Brennan. It was even kind of sweet. She had a feeling Agent Booth wasn't going to rest until he either proved Brennan innocent or sprung her from jail and went on the run like Bonnie and Clyde. The latter scenario was looking increasingly likely, however, given the anthropologist was helping the wrong team … and driving the frazzled FBI Agent to distraction in the process. It wasn't clear if Brennan was brilliant or an idiot at this point, but Booth at least seemed to know what he was up against when dealing with her.

Wincing while the first restraint snapped around her arm, Brennan groaned involuntarily when Harding snapped the second cuff closed on her broken wrist and the pressure shot pain from her fingertips straight to her head. She looked over at Booth and indicated she grasped the situation better than either Booth or Harding had realized. "It's not _you_ I worry about."

_Okay, maybe he's a bigger threat than I thought,_ Harding mused. Agent Booth had looked coiled to strike just before Dr. Brennan had pushed him aside and left his protection. Could it be the doctor's hasty surrender had stopped him from risking everything to keep her out of Harding's custody? Appreciating the sacrifice Brennan had apparently just made to keep the members of NOPD safe, Harding started pushing Brennan gently to the door and even paused for her briefly when Brennan halted and called back to her partner. "You're welcome to the room. It's paid for!"

Harding glanced back at Agent Booth as she stepped out of the room, noting his forlorn expression, the droop of shoulders giving away just how worried he was. She pitied him a little even as she vowed to give him a wide berth.

After the police and Brennan had gone, and the room was silent, Booth pulled her missing earring out of his pocket and finally let the implication of what he'd done stretch itself and awaken his conscience. This earring definitely linked Bones to LeGiere's home and murder. Having concealed it, Booth held in his hand a small piece of metal that could ruin them both. He clutched it fiercely, feeling the warmth of the metal linking him to her. If Harding knew Booth had this, he would lose his career.

_I don't give a damn about the FBI right now,_ he realized. If concealing evidence was what it took to protect her, he'd do it again without hesitation. Brennan trusted Harding and the New Orleans PD to look for the truth the way she would, but that trust was probably misplaced just as it had been with Stires. Harding might betray her. His partner believed in the truth and had put her faith in the justice system, little realizing that the system was working against her. When the players were only interested in getting a fast closure, the truth took a back seat to expedience.

She'd just surrendered herself without the slightest clue to how much trouble she was in.

He was angry, even though he suspected she'd done it to keep him from doing something drastic that would end his career. Was she thinking of the warehouse, the way he'd dragged his broken body out of the hospital to save her from Kenton? Probably. What she'd said—that she wasn't worried about him dying; (rather, that he would be the one killing)—indicated how much she admired his abilities and his strength. Brennan knew he was perfectly able to maim or kill others in defense of her, but she didn't want him to do that. She didn't want him to wreck his life and career over her.

And so she'd stopped him by taking the option away. She'd stopped him because she believed he _would_ kill for her. She was protecting him, just as he was trying to protect her. Realizing that made the icy dread that had gripped his heart start to melt.

And as if that weren't amazing enough, there was more to it than just her saving him from himself, Booth suddenly understood with shock. Brennan had placed her unspoken trust in him. She was entrusting her entire future and life to him, that he would find the truth and get her out of this mess clean and clear.

Brennan's trust was so difficult to win that it staggered Booth to see how much faith she'd placed in him. She believed that Booth would defend her with everything he had, that he would give his very life to keep her safe. She knew he had done so once already and was counting on it now. The responsibility he felt was overwhelming, as if he were guarding the most precious treasure: Temperance Brennan's fragile faith in another human being.

_She believes in me. I can't let her down,_ he gulped. _She's depending on me…._

~Q~

* * *

**Author's Note:** Having her parents disappear, her brother leave her, having been abused in at least one foster home, the pariah of her peers, and then betrayed by her mentor/lover, Temperance Brennan really doesn't trust anyone. Imagine how Booth must have felt when he realized Brennan had consciously put her faith in him. Pretty amazing and a little bit frightening, too.


	4. Cullen On the Merits of Respect

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Bones. I have loosely referenced the plots from Greg Ball & Laura Wolner (The Graft in the Girl), and from Stephen Nathan (The Soldier on the Grave).

**Author's Note:** While writing this series, I've come to appreciate the truly excellent writing that we enjoyed during the early years of Bones. The episodes were stand-alone, yet the events in one episode often pointed to what happened next. This chapter is my favorite because it's the first time Brennan really does something for Booth...

* * *

_Catalyst in the Partnership_

**_4. _**

**_Cullen – On the Merits of Respect_**

_"Well, the next time she shoots somebody, I certainly hope it's you!"_

"Booth."

The dejected agent slumped at his desk, head resting in his palm, but upon hearing his boss's voice he looked up sharply.

"I just got a call from your squint." Deputy Director Cullen took in Booth's tired demeanor and recalled Dr. Brennan's unusual hesitation during the phone call. Her unspoken concern for Booth had come through clearly enough to send Cullen down here as soon as he'd arranged for the order of exhumation Brennan had requested.

"She's worried about you," Cullen continued. He gave a short laugh. "You know, a few months ago I wouldn't have thought her capable of any emotion at all, let alone concern for a living human being."

That remark should have gotten a rise out of Booth—any disparagement towards Brennan did lately—but Booth didn't react beyond a sour tightening of the lips, as if he'd suddenly tasted vinegar.

With a resigned sigh, Cullen saw this was going to take a while and no wonder Brennan hadn't known what to do about it. She had a heart hiding underneath all that squinty logic, but she still lacked any skills in dealing with sensitive emotional situations. What Brennan couldn't manage with Agent Booth was going to fall to his boss. Shutting the office door to give them some privacy, Cullen helped himself to a seat and leaned toward his subordinate.

"Why did Dr. Brennan come to me for permission to exhume Kent's body? That permission should have come from you."

"I told her no," Booth confessed quietly, his fury still simmering. "I refused to desecrate a hero's grave just to satisfy her curiosity."

"You think that's what she's doing?" Cullen made no effort to hide the surprise in his voice. "You actually think she's just morbidly curious?"

Curious enough to dig up a grave for no reason? Booth shook his head, a flash of recognition forcing him to concede she had always been nothing but reverent towards the dead. She treated the bodies she encountered with more deference and respect than she gave most living people.

He reluctantly admitted, "She thinks the Army's autopsy wasn't conducted properly. She says it was sloppy and can't be trusted."

Cullen gave that a moment of thought, then asked carefully, "So, it's a matter of pride? She's showing the Army M.E. she can do better?"

In other words, would Temperance Brennan dig up a grave for no reason other than a desire to second-guess and out-perform the military medical examiner.

Booth shook his head again. "No, it's not like that."

Nodding, the older man spoke again. "Okay, so let me make certain I understand the situation. Your squint, an expert scientist who works closely with medical examiners and specializes in examining the dead for cause of death, suspects an autopsy was improperly performed. This autopsy was of a soldier upon whose grave another murdered soldier's body was left as a message. … And yet you feel her request to examine Kent's body, to either substantiate or dispute the autopsy report, is inappropriate? You are certain that Kent's death does not figure into Marshall's murder, despite the fact that they served in the same unit and Marshall was found on Kent's grave?"

When summarized so cogently, there was nothing he could do but agree that Brennan's request was both reasonable and required under the circumstances. Instead of feeling better about it, however, Booth experienced a greater jolt of wrath towards her. She was so damn rational, so damn _right_ all the time.

Wondering why his boss was there defending Brennan, he set his jaw, ground his teeth together, and glared at Cullen. "I thought you didn't like her, sir."

Cullen raised a brow. "What does my opinion of Dr. Brennan's personality matter? Professionally, she's an exceptional asset with an excellent performance record. The times we've questioned her judgment on her areas of expertise, we have always turned out to be wrong. I seem to recall a certain case involving x-rays and cause of death…."

The stark reminder of Booth's initial failure to put faith in Brennan's abilities rankled. He'd gone to Cullen to get permission-after-the-fact because he'd promised her full participation in his investigations just to secure her expertise. When Cullen objected to taking squints out of the lab, Booth had trotted out that blundered case as the case-in-point for allowing her to accompany him. Now Cullen was pulling that old mistake out and using it against him. Poetic justice.

"So," Booth ground out. "You gave her permission?"

"Of course I did," Cullen retorted. "The question is, why didn't you…?"

Booth dropped his eyes to his lap. "Because she just won't let it go, damn her. She won't stop pushing. She doesn't respect the military, she doesn't respect the sacrifice those soldiers gave. It's just a game to her."

Cullen gazed at Booth a long moment, considering his words carefully. "You recall a few weeks ago, when you were looking into that company, Biotec? I told you it wasn't an FBI matter and to stop looking, to stop pushing, but you didn't. Why didn't you?"

Biotec was a shell company that had illegally harvested and sold human organs and tissues. The bones harvested from a man who'd died of lung cancer had ended up fatally infecting several people, including Cullen's own teen-aged daughter, Amy.

"Bones wouldn't stop," Booth answered reluctantly. "She said there was almost certainly more victims out there who had received the infected bone grafts and needed to be warned."

Cullen nodded. "You found those people, gave them a chance to survive that cancer. You found evidence that Biotec's activities caused deaths in multiple states, bringing it under FBI jurisdiction. You brought the woman who caused all of this heartache to justice. You gave us answers, you and Dr. Brennan. Was that just a game to you?"

"No! Of course not." Booth looked horrified.

"Then why do you think it's just a game to her now? You trusted her judgment enough to defy me, your _boss_, but you won't trust her judgment in the matter of Kent's death. What is the difference, Booth? What has changed between then and now?"

"I …" He trailed off, sensing that he wasn't sure of the difference when it came to Brennan's judgment. She was acting the same way she always did: pushing for the truth, chasing justice. The difference, Booth realized, was in _him_, in the way he felt about her actions and the opinions that drove her.

"She doesn't respect the military, sir. She doesn't respect … me."

There. He'd said it. Booth exhaled and slumped backwards into his chair, suddenly feeling both relieved and drained now that it was out in the open.

Being in the military changed a person: it was the entire goal of boot camp to completely take apart a soldier's identity as a self-interested individual and rebuild him as a piece of a vastly larger whole, as someone willing to give his own life for the good of the whole. A soldier who graduated boot camp felt himself part of the military, and the military was part of him, the two inextricably meshed together. Every time Brennan disparaged the military, she was disparaging a core part of Booth's own identity. In essence, she was disparaging him.

"What did she say that made you think she doesn't respect you?"

She didn't respect chains of command, or the honor of a soldier. Brennan didn't acknowledge that Booth was a soldier, that respect had been pounded into him in boot camp, in ranger school, in every skirmish or battle he'd survived because someone gave the order and someone else carried it out. Respect and honor and duty … she didn't value any of that; instead, she openly disdained the deference Booth was compelled to show towards his superior officers and fellow soldiers. Worse, she questioned Booth's ability and judgment simply because he acted on his training and worked within the military structure he knew so well.

"She says I'm not being objective." Booth's outrage was palpable.

Cullen eyed him sharply. "And she's correct. Any other case, you would have agreed to exhume Kent without question."

When Booth didn't have a response to that, Cullen considered the few interactions he'd seen between Booth and Brennan. Cullen had found her to be cool and clinical, condescending at times, and occasionally reckless. Booth had spent a great deal of time defending her, explaining that she just wanted to find out what happened. Brennan always wanted to know the truth, whatever it was, and wouldn't rest until she found every last scrap. Watching Brennan work on Amy's behalf had shown Cullen that side of her that Booth had been defending all along.

"If she didn't respect you, Booth, Dr. Brennan wouldn't work with you. She tore through six agents in six months before you finally got her to work the Cleo Eller case. You are the only FBI agent who has ever managed to work more than a couple of cases with Brennan."

"Her accusing me of mindless kowtowing and lacking objectivity, is her respecting me?"

"I think you are misinterpreting her concern," Cullen corrected.

"Have you ever been in the military, sir?"

Booth's angry challenge bordered on insubordination, but Cullen let it pass. "Two tours of duty in Vietnam, one Bronze Star and one Purple Heart. What is your point, Agent Booth?"

"Then you know how it is. You know that respect for the chain of command, for duty and sacrifice, is everything. You understand that, right?"

Cullen shook his head. "You think only a person who's military can understand that? Because let me tell you, I was in the military, I understand what you're saying … and I agree with Brennan that you are not being objective about this case."

Shocked and wounded at Cullen's harsh judgment, at his siding with Brennan, Booth turned his head away and stared stonily out the window. He'd be damned if he let Cullen see how hurt he felt at the moment.

But Cullen wasn't finished. "You want to talk about chain of command and duty? You are not in the military now, you are an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. You answer to _me_, not to the Army. Your duty and your responsibility is to find out the truth of what happened to Devon Marshall. And if you're going to sacrifice something, then you sacrifice your pride and admit that your civilian squint is performing her duty as an investigator and a partner better than you are at the moment."

Stung, Booth whipped his head back towards Cullen, the question hanging suspended in his eyes.

"She's doing your job and hers, isn't she?" Cullen snapped. "She had to call me to get the order for exhumation—that's your job. She's covering your ass and pushing you to get past your hang-ups about the military. That's her job as your partner. Instead of moping in here, you should be thanking her for kicking your ass into gear. Then you need to go out and question every soldier in Marshall and Kent's unit. Find out what happened, Booth. Do your duty to the FBI."

With that, Cullen stood up. He was about to leave, but a final thought occurred to him. Glancing over his shoulder, he said quietly, "For what it's worth, I know Dr. Brennan was the force behind your investigation into Biotec, the force that brought what little justice we'll get for Amy. I know Brennan has been instrumental in every investigation you've done over the past year, when your case closure rate soared from the mid seventies to the high nineties. She's the force driving your investigation now and if you would just get out of her way and push _with_ her instead of against her, you will get it done that much faster. You are a better agent since you started working with her."

Cullen paused at the door to conclude, "I will always be grateful for what she did for Amy, and I think you should consider what she's done for you, too. I think we both know Dr. Brennan is more than just a squint."

~Q~

Is she more than just a squint? Cullen's observation hung silent in the back of Booth's mind during the following day, watching Brennan's composure falter as she stood over Kent's body. She'd begun spouting anthropological facts, then halted and apologized when she caught herself. "I'm sorry. It's how I deal…." The question floated silently in the back of his mind while four individual soldiers used the words 'pop, pop, pop' to describe a fire-fight. The question sank back quietly but not forgotten when Booth's investigative instincts roared back into life and propelled him to confide his new suspicions with his partner. The question had been suspended while they worked to bring it all out into the open, catching a killer and giving Devon Marshall the respect he also deserved. Now, when they arrived at Devon Marshall's funeral, Cullen's question was brought into sharp focus because the squint in question was standing right next to him.

He'd taken his orders and had plunged back into the case, reluctantly allowing his earnest partner to show him there was more to the mystery than met the casual eye. Murder … friendly fire … and the hastily concealed slaughter of an unarmed family. Yeah, okay, she was right. Again.

Instead of annoyance, this time he was relieved. There was someone else watching his back, he realized, and maybe he needed her after all because he was recognizing he'd have bungled this case if she hadn't pushed him so hard. Standing at the grave of Charlie Kent, all Booth had seen was desecration, a protestor who carried his sacrilege too far. She had refused to rush to judgment, as usual, while he had stumbled blindly into outrage and almost missed the truth completely. It wasn't a protest, it was a murder. It wasn't lack of respect, it was guilt over a conspiracy that never should have happened. Seeing how she'd saved him from himself, Booth recalled what his friend Hank had suggested a couple of days ago, what Cullen had said, and knew they were both right.

He needed someone and she was standing right beside him. His someone.

The other mourners were moving away, leaving him alone with Temperance Brennan. Almost without knowing how it happened, words spilled out of him—the beginning of his confession. "I've done some things."

"I know," she agreed softly, stating the obvious and giving him the chance to end his confessional before it began. It sounded very much like whatever he had done didn't need to be mentioned, that it didn't really matter and would never change her opinion of him.

Her confidence seemed out of place. He shook his head, almost laughing at the naivety he heard in her unknowing assurance. If she knew, she wouldn't be so certain."No, you don't."

Not to be dissuaded, she shrugged. "But it's okay."

"Not as a secret … it's not." Sinking back down into his chair, he sensed her sinking with him. In a less charged moment he might have been impressed that she'd unconsciously mirrored his action, putting him at ease without thought or plan.

"I need to be honest, about myself," he began again, feeling the same frightened certainty that had pushed him to step through the door of a Gamblers Anonymous meeting for the second, third and fourth times. 'Get honest.' That was one of the steps. Admit the wrong things you've done, say it out loud. Tell someone. Booth felt himself hesitating. Afraid. Could he say it? "I need to be able to tell someone."

He chanced a peek at her, saw her auburn hair drifting in the breeze, her silver eyes squinting in the bright afternoon sunlight. Squinting. He felt a sudden surge of affection towards her. His squint. His Bones. Moments like this kept happening such that he had to admit Cullen was right and she was so much more than just a coworker.

She was his partner, and she was trying to reassure him. "You will in time, Booth."

Helplessly, he glanced at her again. His mouth opened but words stalled. What would she think of him, if he told her the things he'd done? There had been an argument between them a few weeks ago, when she'd asked him what he'd done in the army and he'd snarled that she shouldn't ask unless she was ready to hear the awful truth. She had retreated and she wasn't asking now. Brennan was leaving him his privacy just as he'd demanded, yet he didn't want it any longer.

"You _will_."

She sounded so certain, and with that assurance he heard her faith in him, in his honesty. And her faith that nothing he had done was so terrible that it would shake her. After all, she'd been to Iraq, to Guatemala, to Rwanda. She'd seen and done things, too, and if there was anyone who could understand, Booth knew it was her. His partner.

He was going to do it now. He was going to tell _her_.

As he started, she'd looked startled; undoubtedly she wasn't expecting him to confide in her. As he'd explained about Radik and the ethnic cleansing campaign, she'd nodded. It was subtle, but with that small gesture she was showing that she knew about genocide, probably even more than he did. He continued, trying to convey his actions, his guilt, the sorrow that hung over his head. And for once, she didn't argue. She didn't make a sound.

Did she understand? Could she grasp that he'd killed a father? That, to Radik's little boy, nothing his father had done warranted his head exploding at a birthday party while the music obscenely played on? One shot saved lives but destroyed the life of an innocent child, a child like Parker. Could she understand that? Could she forgive it?

Pressure over his arm registered dimly. Shocked, he looked down and found Brennan's slender hand grasping his arm, connecting them. He reached for her and let his own hand rest over hers, his thumb sliding against her smooth skin in an innocent caress. Her gentle touch broke something in him, a wall he didn't know he'd been hiding behind. Tears stung his eyes as he finally let his grief go.

"We all die a little bit, Bones. With each shot."

Looking up, into her eyes, he found them weeping. Tears had fallen from her eyes and she hadn't wiped them away. And she didn't look away. Her eyes and hand held him steady, offered him the absolution he hadn't believed he would ever find. Booth found yet another reason to be grateful that Temperance Brennan was his partner.

Anyone else would have said something. Only Brennan knew from experience to give him her silence because there were no words that could make it better.

~Q~

"I'm glad you killed him," she said softly.

They had returned to her office in the lab so she could gather the files that needed final notes and signatures. The usual routine at the end of a case was an evening together over paperwork, often at Wong Fu's, but occasionally in her office. Booth liked Brennan's office better than his own because she had a sofa and music, almost like being at home.

She'd been unusually quiet since their conversation at the funeral, her eyes lost and her attention wandering somewhere far afield. Mired in his own worries and guilt, Booth hadn't realized how silent she'd been until she spoke. Until her abrupt statement, so quiet and so angry, caught him off guard.

"Killed who, Radik?" Booth felt his stomach twist at the mention of the man he'd killed.

"Yes."

"Bones…." He didn't want to talk about it now, although the fierce intensity with which she spoke unnerved him. _Please don't ruin what was an incredible moment for me,_ he found himself pleading silently. Whatever she had to say could tip him right back into anger towards her, and he just wasn't ready for that. He didn't want to lose the feeling of peace and acceptance she'd given him at the cemetery today.

"You did the right thing, Booth."

He winced, closing his eyes against her probing gaze. "I'm … not so sure about that." Because no matter what the justification, killing always felt wrong, sickening. It always turned him inside out.

Whatever she'd been preoccupied with drove Brennan to speak again. "I want to show you something."

She walked over to her file cabinet and pulled open a drawer. Ever organized, it took her only a few seconds to go straight to whatever she was looking for, a large file stuffed with reports and photographs. "I told you before that I've been to Kosovo. And to Rwanda, Guatemala, El Salvador, Darfur. You know what I do there."

"Mass graves." His voice sounded rusty, and suddenly he felt like running out of there, running away from what she was going to show him. He sensed pain radiating off of Brennan, recalled her tears earlier that day and her silence ever since. She'd been holding something in, keeping it back for hours until now when, Booth suspected, it was about to be unleashed.

She was walking toward him, holding out the file, holding death in her hands. "This is Kosovo. This is what Radik was doing."

He didn't want to look when she opened the folder but the grisly photographs screamed at him, begging not to be ignored. He saw senselessness in the shapes: the dark holes where eyes used to be, the curve of skulls, the straight lines of arm and leg bones tangled together in a heap that resembled dried spaghetti noodles. Shirts and pants wrapped tightly within the jumble of bodies and bones, with the occasional shoe peeping out—evidence that what he saw was all that remained of dozens of human beings. People. Dead and thrown away like garbage.

He'd used that metaphor this afternoon, to describe what Radik had done. _He threw them away like garbage._ It was an abstract word, a vague concept that he knew on an intellectual level but now was feeling at the visceral level. Bodies were flung haphazardly and decaying like rubbish in a midden and his gut heaved painfully at the sight. This was offensive on a scale that he couldn't even articulate. There was no respect.

Brennan sat beside him and said slowly, "You talked about these people being erased, but do you know what it means? Can you feel it?"

He had closed his eyes, refusing to see what she was showing him. "Bones." It was both an answer and a plea.

"I have stood over these holes in the ground, Booth. I have worked to restore faces onto the skulls of people who were murdered because of who they were, or where they were born. I know you think I'm cold, that I don't care."

He blinked his eyes open in shock. Nothing could be further from the truth—he knew by now just how warm and caring she could be, that the icy façade was a shield she needed in order to survive the pain she encountered. But somehow he'd never conveyed that recognition to her, an oversight on his part.

She drew a steadying breath, her voice beginning to tremble. "When I'm there I can't let it out. I have a job to do and I can't let my emotions get in the way. I can't feel it. I can't…" Another pause, another ragged breath. "If I let myself go…."

For a moment she couldn't continue, the horror sweeping over her and dragging a sob out of her tightly clenched jaw. Then another sob, and with it the words began pouring out of her, out of control, overpowering. Thoughts and feelings Brennan had contained so harshly and for so long suddenly burst free, spewing the pain out for him, to show him; for his sake she wouldn't hold it back any longer.

"Mothers holding their babies, fathers with their children, husbands and wives. They couldn't protect them, even though I know they tried. They all stood together and, and … can you imagine that? You and Parker, your brother, your parents, Rebecca—everyone you ever knew and ever loved, you're all there together and you know. _You know_. You're all going to die, to be erased like you never existed."

He gasped sharply at the mention of Parker's name, but she wasn't finished. Brennan plowed over his instinctive recoil, propelled by the grisly experience that cried out to be expressed in words and nightmare imagery.

"Your DNA, your lineage…. You are the culmination of millions of years and thousands of people, every single one of them as unique and special as you. There can never be another person like you, Booth, or like Parker. But everything that makes you unique, everything about you is obliterated and it's _gone_. There's no trace of you. There's no bringing you back. Your warm brown eyes, Booth, and that charm smile that I hate because I can't say no to it. It will never exist again. It will be lost forever. It won't carry through to the next generation because Parker is gone, and your brother, your father, your cousins.

"It's not just murdering one person. It's destroying _entire families_. It destroys villages, a culture, a language, a religion, a country…."

"Bones, stop." She'd struck him deeply, tearing into his soul with the haunting images of himself and Parker facing a shooting squad. The horror she described, the devastating loss she was trying to convey but couldn't find words to fully capture, all thundered through his heart and head. He felt torn between comforting her and wanting her to stop for the sake of his own comfort.

"No!" she cried. "No, I won't stop. You don't know what it's like to stand there and look at the destruction, to see all those bodies tangled up and spend weeks trying to give them back their names. That's all they're going to get: a footnote in a 1000 page report that bureaucrats shove in a drawer somewhere. And sometimes we can't even give them that—we never find out who they were. We have to talk to the survivors, and the stories I've heard…."

She shuddered, trying to hold the worst of it back, trying to describe it without letting it consume her. "The evil men who did this in Kosovo, they rounded them up and separated the men from the women and children. They raped the women, over and over. They terrorized them all and then just shot them and threw them away. They pushed them into holes and dropped them into karstic caves like garbage, like they weren't _people_. There was no respect, Booth, no regard for the fact that these are human beings."

Respect, there was that word again. He'd told himself she didn't understand it, didn't appreciate it, but here she was using that very concept to underscore the brutal atrocity of genocide. No quarter given to the living, and no respect given to the dead. As if someone had snapped a lens over his eyes, Booth abruptly saw respect from Brennan's point of view. It was something innate, a basic right due to all people, not a socially-constructed veneer that placed some people over others. Everyone was equal in her eyes: no one person was more deserving of deference than any other because of rank or uniform, ethnicity or religious affiliation, wealth or power. To Brennan, every human being was deserving of respect, no matter who they were.

Genocide and murder stole that respect away from the victims. She tried to restore it in death, by giving them back their names, and giving them a proper place to rest when her quest was complete. Brennan's entire world revolved around respect for humanity, and for life itself, on a level he was only just now beginning to appreciate. Science had imbued her with a reverence for life that was just as profound as any religious person's was.

She scrabbled through the photos until she found one that showed an adult with arms wrapped around a much smaller person, a child, their bodies together forming the apex of a revolting pyramid of slaughtered humanity. "They died knowing they were being erased, their entire families and villages. They died knowing their loved ones were being murdered, too. This is what you stopped! **_This_**!"

She stabbed at the image, her tears running freely. "This is what he was doing. This is what you prevented. You stopped it from happening. Do you understand? You stopped it."

While drowning in his own guilt, he hadn't considered the other side, hadn't tried to truly understand what Radik was preparing to do that night. But Brennan knew the result, she was the one who dug it all back up and brought it back into the light. Always so calm, so controlled, the toll it took on her was carefully hidden to the point of invisibility, until she had let it loose tonight. Now her carefully controlled grief had escaped out into the open, an injured beast ravaging the room, and he didn't know what to do to get it contained again. Brennan, who was normally so calm, was collapsing into an emotional mess.

He reached out to touch her shoulder, trying to soothe her. "Bones, it's okay."

"No, you need to understand. You stopped it, Booth." Her glassy eyes held his, pleading with him. "I know you feel bad about the little boy, Radik's boy. But you saved someone else's son that night; another father didn't have to watch his child be murdered in front of his eyes. Another little boy didn't look at his father just before the shooting started and ask, 'why is this happening to us?' And wives didn't lose their husbands, and daughters didn't watch while their mothers were rounded up to be systematically raped until they were impregnated. You probably saved hundreds of lives and unbearable torment with that one shot.

"I know what it cost you, I know that it hurt you. But you did it anyway." She lifted her hand to his heart and pressed gently. And then she said something that plunged into his chest and squeezed his heart to a pulp. With her glowing silver eyes boring into his, Brennan whispered fervently, "I think you're a hero."

Feeling a sob shudder in his chest, he wordlessly pulled her into a tight embrace, holding on so he could bury his face in her shoulder and feel her wrapping her arms around him. He'd feared what anyone else would think if they knew he'd shattered a little boy's life, had braced himself for the condemnation that would fall if he ever confessed. It hadn't occurred to him that Brennan would see it differently, though he ought to know that by now. But of course, she would see the other side, the nobler purpose he'd tried to cling to but had lost sight of in the blurred horror of a little boy's blood-spattered face framed in his rifle scope. Brennan had forcefully reminded Booth why he took that shot, and in that moment he'd never been more grateful towards another human being.

"Thank you," he whispered into her ear. "You have no idea what it means to me to hear you say that, and that you understand."

Wordlessly her arms tightened and they clung together for a boundless moment. Before the moment had completely passed, he sensed Brennan was already bringing herself back under control. Booth did the same, knowing they could only carry this so far before the balance between them shifted too far. As much as things had changed between them, as close as he felt to her, the time to cross boundaries hadn't yet arrived. He needed to set them both back in place.

So it felt completely natural when Booth pulled back and regarded her with curiosity. "You can't say no, eh?"

Brennan's arms slipped down, her brow furrowed in confusion. "Say no to what."

"My charming smiles," he explained, sending one her way at that very moment. His effort to distract them both paid off handsomely.

Her confusion gave way to an almost comical horror as she realized what she had inadvertently given away a few minutes previously. She flushed as brightly as a teenager.

Booth couldn't help grinning. "I knew that," he assured her.

"You did not."

"I did," he countered. "That's why I use them sparingly—I wouldn't want to take unfair advantage."

Her eyes had narrowed, her lips pursing as she stepped into battle with him. "I won't fall for it again."

"Yes you will," he chuckled. Seeing the dangerous gleam in her gaze, he added respectfully, "when you want to, you will."

"When I want to," she repeated thoughtfully, liking the way it sounded.

More seriously, he squeezed her hand briefly before standing up. "You never do anything you don't want to, Temperance. I've always known that, too."

"Then why do you use those charm smiles on me?"

He pulled her to her feet, his eyes laughing but his expression quite serious. "Because you want me to."

He left her speechless at that, to go call in an order of Thai take-out for them both.

Stepping outside her office and extracting his cell from a pocket, he glanced back out of the corner of his eye. She had recovered most of her composure and was busy stuffing the macabre file back into its home in her file cabinet. Booth watched her graceful movements, the way she brushed a strand of hair out of her eyes. Something had shifted between them despite his attempts to hold them in balance.

Taking that final step, trusting her with his sins, had pushed them more fully together. Something had shifted and he knew they would never be the same, they were _more_. Recalling Hank's mistake—"Why don't you tell your girlfriend?"—Booth knew his denial had been correct. He had never trusted any girlfriend with the things he told Brennan today. Bones had become his touchstone. She was beautiful and brilliant. She was quirky and compassionate. She was aggravating and aggressive. She was honest and honorable. She was his partner, and his best friend. There was no one he trusted more.

And as of now, there was no one who knew him better.

~Q~

**Author's note:** One of the things that still fascinates me about this episode (Soldier on the Grave) was that Booth was furious with Brennan ... but we didn't quite know why. Then he suddenly confessed one of his darkest moments to her ... but we didn't quite know why.

What was going on? What changed?

Step Five in the Alcoholics Anonymous program is essentially what Booth did with Brennan in the graveyard. That step calls for the alcoholic—or gambler—to confess the wrong things he's done to another human being, especially the darkest, most shameful things. That is the nudge Hank Lutrell was giving Booth when he said Booth needed to tell someone about Kosovo. This suggests that Hank might be Booth's sponsor (but that's just a guess on my part). The fact that he chose Brennan is huge, a sure sign that she has become extremely important to him at this point.

This chapter contains some of the most personally moving scenes I've ever written. Because I tutor immigrants and refugees in English (ELL) at college, I've heard survivor's stories first hand. To honor the loss of life and the nightmares they've lived through, it was important to convey the horror of genocide in a way that is still 'PG-13' (because of the rating), but yet gets the point across. I've incorporated some of what Brennan has said in previous episodes, (especially her little 'Nobel Prize Speech' at the end of _The Man on Death Row_) to inform the way genocide impacts her. It's not just murder in Brennan's eyes, it's the destruction of something she feels is unique and precious—the marvelous diversity of life and her reverent attitude that every human being is immensely special, "because they all got here the same way I did." As an anthropologist, Brennan would mourn the loss of life, but also the loss of whole family lines of DNA, of language, art, religion, and culture.

Every one of us Bones fans who has watched from the beginning knows this episode (Soldier on the Grave), with that special moment in the graveyard, was huge. Booth trusted Brennan with one of his most painful secrets, with his grief, and she responded in just the right way-by listening and grieving with him.

So, dear readers, what do you think...?


	5. David On the Implication of Intimacy

**Disclaimer:** I do not own anthing pertaining to Bones. I have borrowed and 'thought-out' one extended scene written by Hart Hanson (The Woman in Limbo).

**Author's Note:** Hello readers. I'm posting this a day early because I'm going out of town for a wedding and won't be able to update on my regularly-scheduled Thursday. I didn't want to make you wait too long... :)

Getting back to the story developing here, the change noted between the partners in Soldier on the Grave (and in my previous chapter) manifests itself quite quickly, doesn't it...?

* * *

_Catalyst in the Partnership_

**_5. _**

**_David – On the Implication of Intimacy_**

_"I'm sorry, did I miss something? Because I don't want to get in the way of anything between you two…" _

Court days could be a little bit stressful.

Booth had his case file stashed under one arm and walked briskly into the Jeffersonian in search of his partner. Brennan, always a bit scattered when multiple priorities were competing for her attention, tended to be especially distracted on court days. Partly that was because he needed to drag her out of the lab for several hours, and everyone always seemed to have a reason to pull her aside for a last-minute consultation that wouldn't have been urgent if she were merely going out to a crime scene or helping with an interview. Even road trips that were going to last days didn't upset the squints to nearly the degree that a single afternoon in front of a judge typically did. They heard 'court' and flocked to her in a panic.

Somehow, court days made her absence appear more pronounced. Perhaps because she turned her cell phone off on those days, he mused. The thought that she was so desperately needed brought him a sense of proud satisfaction because ultimately, she would be leaving them all to go with him.

He breezed into her office and found her still in her lab coat, frantically pawing through a mess of files on the surprisingly littered surface of her desk. Goodman hovered behind her, wringing his hands over something while she muttered, "The defense attorney told the jury I was winging it."

"Ready? Chop, chop!" Booth moved fast, tugging her lab coat off her shoulders while she was still searching for whatever-it-was and Goodman was continuing to make a nuisance of himself. Brennan didn't object to Booth's stripping of her: a fairly recent development. Not three weeks ago, she'd have knocked a foot-sized hole in his skull if he'd tried to pull any article of clothing off like this. (Six months ago, he'd have been hard-pressed to resist pulling off more than just the lab coat while dodging that lethal foot.)

Yet ever since a particular afternoon by a grave, Booth was feeling warmly connected to Bones. He suspected she was feeling the same, an odd and unquantifiable intimacy that had sprouted between them like fresh spring grass. Suddenly, removing her coat was no big deal and seeing her smooth skin revealed underneath wasn't quite the distraction it used to be. Not that he didn't notice her beauty; rather that it was familiar and available for him to look at whenever he wanted to see her. They had relaxed around each other and settled into an easy familiarity that felt like family. Sort of.

"I can't find my original notes," she complained.

"There's a photocopy in the file." Booth tugged her blue lab coat all the way off her busy hands, barely noticing the slender, bare arms he'd exposed because he'd already spun to grab her black blazer off the coat rack behind her desk.

"No, the last time, the defense lawyer told the jury…."

"It was a ploy. It failed." Booth slipped behind her, taking both of her arms from behind and turning her to the door. The smooth warmth of her skin skimming beneath his palms might have succeeded at last in distracting him if he wasn't already so distracted by the need to get her out of the Jeffersonian gauntlet. He steered her out, propelling her from behind. "Let's go."

Just steps outside her office, Brennan automatically put her arms behind her and Booth slid her blazer up over them with practiced fluency. It was as if they had done this a hundred times, not just once. First time today.

Hodgins found glass and pollen. Goodman wanted her to swing by Archaeology to share a piece of her mind.

While she took over the buttoning of her jacket, Booth's hands found protective locations on her elbow and shoulder, guiding her and warding the others off at the same time. No one seemed to think anything was odd about how closely he held her, least of all Brennan herself.

It was just another sign that something had changed between them over the last weeks.

"No. No swinging," Booth insisted.

That didn't deter Angela from pulling up alongside and asking about a spine, nor Zack from calling out to his mentor. Brennan quickly issued instructions to Angela before Booth pushed the artist back and cradled his partner closer still. He bent his head, whispering to her. "I don't think you should talk about other cases so much on court date. You might get confused."

Brennan shivered slightly, her eyes catching his in consternation at his suggestion that she might ever be confused over the facts. She reached for the file he was carrying but he pulled it back playfully. She grimaced in annoyance. They kept walking, still embraced.

Goodman hadn't given up yet. "One simple question: Assyrian, Hittite or Egyptian! It'll take five minutes!"

But it was Zack who finally won her attention away from Booth. "Dr. Brennan!"

Zack, unlike any of the others, had a skull on hand to draw her interest. In a flash she had darted away from Booth and dashed up the forensics platform. Exasperated, Booth tried to call her back. "Bones!"

"What's up," Brennan asked her student. She leaned over the smooth, white skull, drawing her auburn hair to one side and examining the small eraser tips poking out at various angles.

"Buttercup," Zack rejoined, then explained he needed her approval of the tissue depth markers.

"Why did you say buttercup?" Brennan's puzzled query made Booth smile despite his having to enter the platform in order to recapture her.

"_'What's up buttercup?'_ is an amusing, rhyming linguistic meme. _This_ is the latest Jane Doe from Limbo." Zack stood back, letting her be dazzled by both his work on the skull and his daring use of a colloquialism.

Booth was dazzled by neither. "How about this for an amusing, rhyming _linguini_. See you later, alligator." He took Brennan's elbow again with the intention of pulling her out. She was still looking at the skull, resisting Booth's magnetic presence. He should have guessed he could never win out over a nice, juicy bone….

Goodman took her resistance as a sign to keep trying, but not without a little side-trip into the semantics of 'Limbo' vs. 'Bone Storage' as the most appropriate moniker for the catacombs below the lab where human remains waited for identification. Booth's mission to escape the lab with his partner was momentarily diverted by the discussion.

Brennan took their distraction as a sign she could sneak in another quick peek at the skull. "No sign of foul play."

"If you have time for this, you have time for my Hittite," Goodman complained, suddenly realizing that Zack had gotten more than a minute out of her.

"Tissue depth along the jaw line and the cheekbone look a little deep to me but otherwise—"

Booth stole his partner once again, cutting her off. "Outta Limbo, back on earth, and on our way to court."

She went with him more willingly this time, leaving Goodman behind in a state of peevish dissatisfaction. As they finally slipped out the sliding doors of the lab Booth breathed a sigh of relief, rejoicing that he had her to himself for the next few hours.

By now, Booth had worked with her long enough to know that Dr. Temperance Brennan was in demand. The FBI wanted her, but so did the CIA, the NSA, DMORT, the UN, Doctors Without Borders, the ICC, and various other agencies concerned with identifying the long-term dead. That didn't include the various universities and other historic or archeological projects she consulted on; the various police agencies that called upon her expertise; or the publisher that had begun pressing her for a finished second novel.

He was lucky she allowed him even five minutes of her time, Booth knew, let alone the luxury of entire days by his side in a court room or at a crime scene. He was blessed to enjoy her lovely smiles, which were coming to him with increasing frequency, and the teasing light in her eyes when she argued with him. His good fortune included the soft brush of her body against his as they walked closely together. Lately he'd taken to touching her, guiding her, and she let him. She let him open doors and she let him slip his palm against the small of her back when they walked through a doorway. She let him take her to lunch and she helped herself to his fries when she thought he wasn't looking.

She had let him into her lab and into her life. In return, she had motivated him to straighten up the mess of his own life and burgeoning gambling problem. His gambling was under control; Rebecca was softening and letting him see Parker a lot more often in the last couple of months as a result. Working with Brennan had placed his career on the steep yet sure track that would get him to the top in a matter of years (rather than decades). He let her wander into his office on whatever whim she cooked up, and let her sit in on his interrogations more and more often.

And when he was really lucky, he got to spend whole days with her. Having a day with Bones to look forward to made the irritation of courtrooms, dour judges, smarmy defense attorneys and cranky prosecutors fade away into background noise. Things were looking up just because she was at his side and looking up at him.

And then they rounded the corner on their way to the parking facility and ran into David Simmons.

"Temperance!" he exclaimed brightly.

Surprised to see him, she blushed and allowed a shallow hug, exchanging chaste kisses on the cheek. "What are you doing here?"

One more obstacle, Booth grumbled internally. No problem. Drawing her back to his side, Booth inserted himself between Brennan and this latest rival for her attention. "She has to get to court, so…."

David's greeting sounded sweetly inauthentic. "Booth, nice to see you again, especially when I'm not in custody."

Booth's intention to keep on walking caused David to dart ahead of them and plant himself in Brennan's path. "Listen, I read your manuscript. I couldn't wait to tell you how great it is."

"Thank you." Brennan flushed in shy surprise. "Really?"

The dart of raw jealousy that dashed across Booth's face was completely missed by the two others. Despite the narrow escape, Booth couldn't restrain himself from plucking the heavy packet out of David's limp hands, his envy exposed anyway. "You read her _manuscript_? Really?"

Wordlessly, Brennan rescued it and stuffed it under her arm like a shield.

"Her second novel: Bone Free. It's kind of like 'Born Free' except, no lions." David grinned, impressed with his own literate cleverness.

Booth rolled his eyes. "Yuck on the title. Am I in it?"

"No," she declared immediately, her brow furrowed at Booth's unenthusiastic pronouncement.

David grinned wickedly. "Definitely."

Brennan's discomfort was growing. She shifted her weight anxiously. "Uh, we have to get to court." This time she was the one to start dragging Booth away.

Turning as if to follow when she started off down the hall, David offered a bit of jaunty advice. "I hope you have your original notes. 'Cause last time…."

She halted, pivoted, flustered. "Told you, Booth!"

Throwing up his hands in frustration, he groaned. "Bones! We don't have time!" But she had nearly rounded the corner on her way back to the lab. "All right. Three minutes. I'll … uh … wait for you in the car…."

Alone with David, he sighed. His hands plunged into his pockets, a forced smile and I'm-trying-not-to-kill-you laugh accompanying his inquiry. "So, are you two, uh…?"

"Yeah, sort of." David's answering smile was equally false. They circled each other, both blatant in their mutual dislike. "Is that a problem?"

The simulated smile stayed resolutely in place. "Yeah…."

Oh hell yeah, it was a problem. He wasn't even sure how to put into words just how much of a problem he had with David … dating? kissing? … Bones. Reading her book when she wouldn't let her partner even get a look at the cover. And making stupid jokes, making her waste time getting notes she didn't need and now they were going to be LATE to court. Yeah, there was a problem.

"You know, Bones is very literal. So in the future, no joking advice on court day." Booth turned away, tossing his poker chip and wishing he could toss David out on his ass just as easily.

A minute passed. Then two or three. Four….. Five…..

Even David had shrugged and said he'd catch up with her later.

_Good riddance._ Booth checked his watch again. _What the hell is keeping her?_

Wondering if Goodman had kidnapped her and absconded to Archaeology after all, Booth walked back into the lab in search of his missing partner. He found Goodman, Zack and Angela crowded around Angela's holographic projector in Angela's office, and noted that none of them were behaving normally. Angela looked worried, Goodman bewildered and even Zack was concerned instead of clueless.

"Has anyone seen Bones? Okay, we're due in court, like, hello—now!" He realized all at once the three baffled squints were too worried to reply. "What..."

A twisting sensation in his gut signaled the certain knowledge that something had happened. And it involved Bones because, didn't he know by now … she's always been a magnet for trouble.

All three squints were looking at him, but it was Angela who answered his impatient query by flipping on her holographic projector. "This … totally freaked her out." Angela's mystification was complete—she had never seen Brennan over-react to a facial reconstruction before.

But the moment the projector flickered into life, Booth knew instantly what had happened to his partner. The twisting in his gut snapped free and spun wildly, like a wound-up swing that flails in a circle as the chains uncoil. The woman's calm, ghostly face spun much more slowly than his roiling gut, slightly fuller cheeked than the face he could recollect from memory. Booth's eyes caught and held the woman while he pulled out his phone and immediately dialed a number.

Zack looked at the woman's face as well, and shrugged out his explanation. "My theory? Caffeine intolerance."

Someone picked up on the line. Booth spoke briskly, his eyes still glued to the woman's face in disbelief. "Yeah, you're going to want to take Dr. Brennan off the witness list today. … No. She can't make it into court. … Thanks."

Hearing this, the three squints gaped at each other in confusion as Booth disconnected the call.

"All right. What's going on," Angela demanded.

Didn't she know? Booth gazed in shock from one to the other, feeling another plunge into awareness that quite a few things between him and Brennan had changed tremendously over the last few months. He had recognized that face just about as quickly as Bones probably had. None of the others seemed to have the slightest clue. His gaze fell onto Angela, hardly able to believe that even _she_ didn't know who she had just identified. Yet clearly, she didn't.

So it felt to Brennan's partner, Special Agent Seeley Booth, to inform them. "That … is Christine Brennan."

Goodman gasped. "Good God!"

"You just found Bones's mother."

The forensic artist's eyes darted back to the face she'd just recreated. Booth knew she was berating herself mentally for failing to see the unmistakable resemblance. But he didn't have time to stick around for questions or the inevitable how-could-I-have-missed-that? discussion. Finding Bones was his biggest priority. He left to go check for her in her office, arms automatically folded defensively because he had no idea what to expect. Everything had changed from sunshine to darkness in the span of a few minutes.

He found her at her desk, eyes cast down onto a rusty belt buckle attached to a decaying leather belt. She didn't look up, but he heard the strain in her voice.

"I have to miss court."

Uneasy, he acknowledged that he knew what was happening, why she'd vanished on him. "I know." Those two small words conveyed a great deal of knowing, of sympathy and understanding.

She gently fingered the round, metal disk in her hands. "I remember this belt buckle. I borrowed it without asking, the first day of high school. My father had it specially made for my mother because she loved dolphins."

"Bones… I'm sorry." The heartfelt words throbbed between them, battering the flimsy control she'd been trying to maintain.

"I always knew that, for my parents to disappear like that, they … they had to be dead. I thought that when it was confirmed I'd feel _relief_. But …." Her voice broke. Her hands shook as she lowered the buckle.

Softly, fully empathetic, he acknowledged, "It's still bad news."

Zack entered cautiously, slipping into Brennan's office beside Booth.

She seemed to sense him, too, without even looking. "You have the file, Zack?"

"Jane Doe number 129, 0998," the intern supplied, reading the case number off the file he held.

Harshly, Brennan buried herself in the work. "Where was she found?"

"Bones…."

Even more harshly. "What does it _say_?"

Zack opened the folder and read in his usual, flat voice. "In September of 1998, a grave-digging crew at the Sunset Memory Cemetery in Salisbury, Pennsylvania uncovered human remains in a completely advanced stage of decomposition."

Booth interrupted, his arms still crossed. "Is it from a grave?"

"No," Zack replied. "It appears somebody just dug a hole on the edge of the cemetery and … plopped the body in there."

Annoyed at the lack of compassion or discretion, Booth hissed a warning. "Zack!"

"Sorry," he stumbled, contrite. Zack found his place in the file and continued reading. "The local coroner found no evidence of foul play, and sent the remains, soil samples and a few artifacts with the remains to the Jeffersonian, hoping we could identify her. Technically, your mother has been at the Jeffersonian as long as you have."

Booth couldn't believe he had to warn him again. "Zack…."

"Sorry. But they both got here in 1998."

Goodman's solemn arrival interrupted Zack again. "Dr. Brennan. Ms. Montenegro has graciously volunteered to drive you home."

Booth nodded, stepping closer to her, his arms still crossed as if he expected her to go on the offensive. "Temperance." Hearing her given name, she looked up, wordless but with tears escaping.

"Go home," Booth instructed gently.

Brennan turned her gaze blindly back to the long-missing belt buckle. Going home was the last thing she wanted to do, but she couldn't work her own mother's case. She couldn't work any case in this condition. The rational scientist in her recognized that, but the shocked and grieving daughter was held frozen in her seat.

"Come on, Bones." He gently took her elbow and pulled her to her feet. Compassion bled from every movement as he helped her gather the grave artifacts and carefully place them back in the evidence bag. Angela was hovering at the door, teary-eyed, but it was Booth who guided Brennan out of the Jeffersonian and into Angela's car.

"I'll stop by later, okay?"

Brennan nodded absently.

Pursing his lips, Booth asked reluctantly, "You want me to call David for you? Tell him what's going on?" He waited in dread for her to say yes.

But she shook her head. "No. I don't…. No."

"I'll stay with her for a while," Angela offered.

Booth nodded, grateful.

~Q~

"Hey, Booth, I'm glad I caught you."

Booth turned around, surprised at who was speaking to him. David Simmons was striding towards him from the corridor outside the lab, a concerned expression darkening his features.

"What's going on with Tempe?"

Glancing back into the lab he'd just departed while Russ and Temperance Brennan attempted to reconnect, Booth decided now was a bad time for David to pop in unexpectedly. The tension crackling between the Brennan siblings was enough to make anyone look for lightning. Wanting to give them space, he gestured to keep walking towards the gardens outside. They fell into mismatched steps, David being forced to trot in order to keep up with Booth's longer stride.

"Have you asked her?" Booth suggested.

"Of course," David replied. "All she said was it's a tough case and she didn't want to talk about it."

Slowing his pace, Booth glanced at the shorter man. "Really?"

"But something is going on, right? I mean, she's not returning my calls. I stopped by yesterday but she said she didn't have time to talk. She looked tired. I'm worried."

_I really hate this guy_, Booth muttered internally. _Just really hate him. He's all wrong for her. No spine._ Concealing those thoughts wasn't too difficult, however, because Booth's attention had snapped onto the ramifications of what David had just told him. Bones wasn't talking to David about her mother's case….

"What do you know about her family?" he probed.

The casual request seemed to come out of nowhere. David frowned, realizing at once he probably should know more than he did. "Not much. She said they disappeared."

"Did she tell you how old she was when it happened?"

A shrug. "Late teens."

"She was fifteen."

"Oh." David stopped walking as the significance registered. That young meant, what, foster care? He looked to Booth and saw there was a great deal that he didn't know, but Booth clearly did. "She told _you_ about it, then."

"She asked me to investigate," Booth shrugged, knowing suddenly that this was no shrugging matter. Bones had entrusted him with her past, something no one else knew besides Angela. Something she hadn't shared with David, just like Booth had never told any girlfriend about his past as a sniper. She'd actually told him _more_ than Angela, Booth acknowledged. Booth had recognized Christine Brennan's face; Angela hadn't.

"Meanwhile, she tells me nothing." David grimaced, wondering when she was planning to tell him the details Booth evidently knew, if ever.

Booth took pity on the guy. He was a spineless idiot, but David did seem to care about Bones. "She doesn't like to talk about it. She just asked me to check out the old investigation, to see if anything was missed. That's all."

Nodding succinctly, David met Booth's eyes. "Why are we talking about Tempe's family now?"

_Okay, maybe not quite an idiot_, Booth amended. "We just found her mother. She's been dead for—" Booth hesitated, wondering how much he should tell David. "…pretty much the entire time she's been missing."

"So, she's basically investigating her own mother's murder? Is that what you're telling me?"

Booth nodded, feeling a nudge of reluctant sympathy for the guy. "Look, David. Bones … she's kind of private about stuff. Take her book, for example. She won't let me read it, but you got to. Right?"

He shook his head slowly, as if realizing something. "You know why, Booth? It's because my opinion doesn't matter to her. Yours does."

"What?"

"You know it's true. The book is not about me, so she lets me read it. If I don't like something, she doesn't care. But the important stuff—stuff about her work, about her life—that, I don't get to hear about. You do. You're the man she's sharing her life with."

With that, David turned and headed for the street. He didn't look back and Booth had a feeling he would never see David again. Maybe Bones wouldn't, either. There was a finality in what David had declared. Absolute Truth.

Booth turned the other direction, his eye catching the fountain they'd walked past on that long ago afternoon. Brennan had bounced along just slightly behind him, her shoes in hand. _"I can be a duck!"_ But she wasn't one of the ducks he thought he needed despite having promised her full participation. Temperance Brennan had refused to let him break his word, so she'd blackmailed him a few minutes later. Instead of backing down, she'd daringly forged their partnership while standing barefoot in the grass, her glinting eyes knowing she had him trapped.

Nine months later, Booth couldn't quite believe how much they'd changed each other, as if that initial, tentative alliance had gestated into an unbreakable union. Was David right…? If Booth had never told any of his girlfriends or male buddies about that hit in Kosovo, the way it had splintered his conscience into shards of bloody glass, yet he'd told her, what did that mean? If she didn't tell her boyfriend about her parents, about her mother's confirmed death, what did that mean?

She had let him in, and he had let her in. They were so deeply entrenched in one another that it felt seamless and close and intimate on a scale he'd never imagined could be possible. They weren't just partners. They weren't lovers, not at all, yet he felt more deeply connected to Brennan than he ever had to Rebecca. They were closer than friends, somehow closer than family. Yet they were none of those things.

_What are we? _He wandered towards the fountain, needing the cool rush of water to soothe the turmoil brewing in his soul. Why didn't she share this pain with David? Why had he told her about Kosovo, and all the other secrets he'd begun to reveal to her. _Am I in love with her?_

Somehow, he knew that wasn't quite right. Not that kind of love. Yet even as he tried to deny he held romantic feelings for her, the inwardly honest part that he couldn't completely silence knew better. That part of him knew that if they ever did make love, it would be cataclysmic. It would be nuclear fusion, the complete loss of themselves as individuals. They would truly fuse into one, irrevocably.

The thought thrilled and terrified him in equal measures.

He wasn't ready for that. More importantly, he knew she wasn't ready either. If they tried too soon, without the utmost commitment, they would destroy this amazing thing they had begun building together.

~Q~

Comforting her over Chinese take-away and midnight confidences had felt perfectly natural. She didn't really believe he'd seen her lights from the street—he would have had to leave his car parked and walked a few steps up the alley for that—but she let his little white lie pass uncontested because he was there and the food smelled delicious. And being with him was vastly preferred to being alone.

And though she had bitterly asked if his parents hadn't gone out to secretly rob banks while he and Jared slept, he knew it was only the pain and shock speaking. The always-honest Temperance was having a hard time accepting the idea that Joy was a part of her, too. Everything she had worked to become was founded on a lie her parents told her. She wasn't who she thought she was; consequently, she didn't know who she was.

When the breakdown came, via softly gasped assertions uttered in the quiet of a dilapidated barn, he could hardly bear to watch her struggle. "I am Dr. Temperance Brennan," she'd insisted with no assurance at all. "I work at the Jeffersonian…." She worked with the unidentified dead, giving them their names, yet she didn't know her own name now. She fought crime, bringing criminals to justice, yet her own family lived outside the boundaries of the laws she tried to uphold. She brought justice to the victims, yet her parents might be the victimizers. "I'm Dr. Temperance Brennan…." Every statement choked out with decreasing levels of certainty wrung his heart, until the last, accompanied by tears and a sob.

He'd pulled her into his arms, reassuring her. "I know who you are. Hey, I know…."

She'd held onto him as the only solid thing left in the world. In those precious moments, he'd enjoyed nothing so much as the feeling of Temperance Brennan nestled in his embrace. He knew precisely who she was.

"You're Bones. Okay? You're my Bones..." Tenderly, he whispered to her everything he admired about her. All the truths of her that he had come to know.

And she believed him.

It was only with his steadying faith in her that Brennan pulled herself back together and found the proof that would put her mother's killer behind bars. The nervous former 'mechanic' had offered a deal: if she dropped her evidence he would tell her about her father. Her eyes steely with contempt, she'd declined the offer. "I found out what happened to my mother, I'll find out what happened to my father, too."

He knew that she would—he knew that about her, just as he'd known she would not make a deal with a criminal or compromise evidence for her own comfort. Because she was his Bones, the always honest woman whose name meant moderate and whose passion was justice and whose tenacity could border on painful at times.

That was why he let her drive.

And where she took them was all the way to North Carolina to drag one long-missing and only recently-restored brother back to Washington DC. Somewhere halfway there she decided she was Bones, because that was the woman Booth spoke so highly of. That was the woman she worked so hard to be. They returned to her apartment, deciding to start their renaissance by sharing a toast over bottles of imported lager.

"To us," Booth had offered.

"Whoever the hell we are," Russ added with a laugh. Because he was Russ and Kyle, and she was Temperance and Joy; and the only thing they knew for certain was that Keenan and Brennan were both Irish surnames. But Temperance Brennan knew who she was when she looked at her partner. She knew she would always be Bones because that's who she had become when Booth entered her life. That was who she wanted to be.

When she looked at him, her softly spoken hope had nestled directly into Booth's heart. "To what we are becoming."

Asking himself that question several times over the past 24 hours, the sense of wonder and awe had only grown during the last ten minutes when they'd entered her apartment together. Because here he was, with her and her brother, taking part in the long-overdue family reunion he'd played such a large part in arranging.

He heard David Simmons bitterly recognizing how anemic his connection with Brennan was. _"She told __**you**__ about it, then."_ David wasn't here, but Booth was.

Brennan went for the promised beers, leaving Booth alone with Russ for a moment. Russ chatted about his girlfriend, Amy, who had two daughters, but Booth's attention found something much more intriguing. He had immediately spotted her manuscript sitting on her kitchen counter. The title, the one he'd said 'yuck' about, was crossed out.

David liked it; Booth didn't. And so she was changing it.

_"My opinion doesn't matter to her. Yours does." _

Booth swallowed a lump that had knotted up his throat, seeing there before him the solid proof that David was right. Unable to resist while her back was turned, Booth lifted the top sheet and felt an answering wave of dizziness when her voice whispered to him from the dedication page. "To my partner and friend, Special Agent Seeley Booth."

There hadn't been many times in his life when the urge to cry fought with the urge to grin like a fool. Luckily, Brennan had chosen that moment to return, distracting the lump in Booth's throat from getting any tighter and his smile won the duel. He took the beer she'd handed him.

Their fingers brushed lightly together. His heart raced. She spoke about what they were becoming.

And he wondered again … what are we? They worked together: partners, crime solvers—rapidly becoming the sharpest, most efficient team in the Bureau—and friends. But... David liked the title and yet she changed it because Booth said, 'yuck.' He called her Bones and she let him. He was here and David wasn't. He'd comforted her all week and David hadn't even been invited….

_"You're the man she's sharing her life with."_

Oh how glad he was that she shared her life with him. That she trusted him and smiled for him and let him stand beside her, comfort her, touch her. He wanted all of that and more with her.

_Oh, God, Seeley, you've gone and fallen in love with your partner._

Her eyes met his, glowing softly with a guarded happiness and hope, brightly with her unending curiosity, warmly with an affection he knew David would probably never see.

And he shivered. There was no denying that she was feeling it, too.

~Q~

* * *

**Author's Note:** Do you readers think they were both in love with each other by the end of the first year? Neither? Only one (and if so, which one?) It's been fun to go back over that first year to try and mine their on-screen actions for clues to what they were feeling or to what sort of off-screen moments were taking place.

Next up: Season Two!


	6. Cam On the Spirit of Competition

**Disclaimer:** Is this really necessary...?

**Author's Note:** It's Christmas break and I'm back! Thanks for waiting, all of you who waited patiently. This is the first of 5 or 6 more 'one-shot' chapters that will cover season 2. Things are changing between Booth and Brennan... And there's a new sheriff in town.

Part of what drove this particular chapter is one line that Booth said early in season 2 that has always intrigued me. Can you guess which line is? Hint: you'll find it near the end of this story.

* * *

_Catalyst in the Partnership_

**_6. _**

**_Cam – On the Spirit of Competition_**

_"How can I ensure she makes the right decision?" _

The last time he'd picked her up at the airport, she hadn't been particularly grateful despite the degree of inconvenience it had caused him. He'd had to fill out paperwork to get Homeland Security to seize her for questioning, then go through additional legal hoops to transfer custody. When he finally wandered into the interrogation room to 'rescue' her, Dr. Temperance Brennan had seen through the ruse immediately (because let's face it, it's pretty damn hard to outwit a genius). She stormed out ahead of him in a fit of pique, threatening to bellow 'kidnap!' to any interested passersby unless he let her go her own way. To this day he still wasn't quite sure how he'd managed to stop her from leaving him at the curb.

The contrast between then and now was remarkable because this time she was waiting for him. He saw her standing at the United Air arrivals aisle, looking lovely as ever in a functional brown jacket and jeans. Pulling up beside her, he leaped out of the FBI's standard issue SUV with a delighted grin and found she was smiling back. She might actually be glad to see him this time.

"Bones!"

"Booth, you didn't have to pick me up. I could have taken a taxi." Brennan shifted her weight tiredly, still carrying her standard messenger tool bag and one heavy canvas duffle bag.

"I was in the area," he tossed off carelessly. They both knew that wasn't true.

Humidity from the late summer DC downpour had curled her hair slightly, causing it to wave loosely around her face. Stepping towards her with the intention of simply getting closer, Booth hesitated suddenly because he realized his impulse was to embrace her. What he felt inclined to do was at odds with what he was allowed to do, and that fact was complicated by the way her coriander scent wrapped around him and her coral lips twitched in the sideways grin that he'd missed. As he got just a little closer, her silver eyes blinked at him like an owl's curious and knowing gaze.

Suddenly, touching her seemed like a dangerous idea, because where his hands went his lips were sure to follow. So instead of touching, he held her gaze while leaning in, wondering what she would do. Would she wrap her arms around him? Would she kiss him? He let his eyes wander dreamily over her face while one of his charm grins slipped out to play with her.

"What are you doing?" she asked, with more than a trace of amusement.

Flirting with Brennan had yielded its typical fizzle. A vague sigh of disappointment had him reaching for her duffle bag instead of her. "Putting your bag in the trunk."

When she relinquished it with a brushing of fingertips, he barely contained the shiver that danced up his arm. Duly noted: touching Temperance Brennan risked heart failure.

Stepping back as quickly as his legendary coolness allowed, he set his mind to other thoughts, distracting thoughts. For example, he couldn't help marveling that she packed very light for a female. Most women he'd known would have carried two or three suitcases on a three week vacation. Brennan had just the one moderately sized duffle. Then again, Darfur in the Sudan wasn't exactly a vacationer's paradise. It would have been broiling, grueling work, knee deep in dusty graves under the Sahara sun.

Some vacation.

Yet a few minutes into the drive, Brennan admitted she'd skipped Darfur in favor of spending time in South Carolina with Russ, Amy and the two young nieces-to-be. He'd glanced over at her in surprise, musing that Temperance Brennan choosing to spend her free time around living people had to be some kind of miracle. He grinned, counting himself a good influence on her.

They'd driven three more miles with the sirens blaring and him taking turns on two wheels before she finally asked why. Booth chuckled because he'd sort of forgotten this aspect of his partner's intense personality: the unceasing myopic cluelessness. It had only been three weeks, but he'd really missed her—all of her, even the really annoying, snarky parts of her.

Why he'd picked her up at the airport was partly to spare her the cab fare, and mostly because he'd been informed her presence was needed to identify the badly burned body of a suicide who'd derailed a train in his effort to off himself.

When they arrived at the site of the commuter train crash, hearing his first name called out with the familiarity of an old lover wasn't the worst part, nor was Cam's ironic assertion that she didn't know who Brennan was. (She did, she was the one who'd first suggested Booth utilize Brennan's skills nearly two years ago.) It wasn't even the part when he realized Brennan had no clue why Dr. Camille Saroyan was issuing her an order and it was going to fall to him to explain that Cam was now her boss.

No, the worst part was when Cam flashed him a provocative grin and told him he looked good, and always had. Flushing in horror, he gulped when Brennan's cluelessness chose that moment to fail him. She had turned her mesmerizing eyes on his with a withering observation. "One minute she's holding a severed arm, and the next minute she's hitting on you."

Laughing, he denied it. "No, she wasn't hitting on me."

_God, Cam just hit on me in front of Bones._ Brennan's disapproval for that kind of behavior at a crime scene was well known, but for some reason he was more worried that Brennan would think he had a thing going with Cam.

It only got worse after that.

Over the next few days, Brennan ran like a water tap, cool one moment and hot the next. Half the time she barely glanced at him, yet at the Diner the next evening she sat so close their elbows dueled and she nimbly dodged his irritated slaps to her hands while she blatantly stole fries off his plate. Keeping his mind on questioning Turko nearly didn't happen because his body was acutely aware of his partner's body and warmth right next to him.

She had no idea how much she affected his concentration.

Her complaints to him about Cam increased, especially when Cam told Brennan there could be no experiments without express authorization. A confrontation between the two was coming and he was caught in the middle. Brennan was his partner and he knew he was probably more than half in love with her; but Cam was a very old friend who would expect Booth to take her side. Worse, she had authority over Brennan and wasn't about to permit insubordination. Booth felt he'd better defend Cam's point of view before Brennan led Mutiny on the Bounty at the Jeffersonian and got everyone fired.

"Cam's goal is a successful prosecution in a court of law," he tried to explain.

Convinced she was after the same thing, Brennan dismissed that out of hand. "So am I."

"No, you're all about science and the _Truth_," he countered with a fond laugh. Booth reached out to touch her hand, stilling her resistance for a moment. "Cam knows that too much truth is just as bad as too little."

How he managed not to pull her fingers to his lips or shiver when their skin connected, was due only to the fact that her eyes had already ensnared him by that point.

Brennan studied him carefully. He knew that look, her crystalline gaze slicing through him while her ridiculously huge brain shuffled a gazillion facts and observations she kept stored in her cranial cap. Brennan was about to pull something out of that hat and it was going to shock him. She always came up with something unexpected, and he was always walking behind her with his palm stretched and ready to catch his own falling jaw.

His phone rang. Right on cue, Brennan leaned over, her beauty and earnestness still completely disarming him, and then she dropped the bomb in his proverbial lap.

"Angela says you and Cam had a previous sexual relationship. Does that affect your view of her?"

He nearly choked on his own astonishment, flummoxed mostly because she _knew_, which pretty much proved that her suggestion was also true. "Wildly out of line, just so you know that!"

What the hell brought that on? Before he could spend even a moment contemplating the question of Brennan possibly being jealous or merely blunt and curious, his concentration was shattered by the news on the phone call.

Four hours later, sitting next to her in the car while they staked out a petty heroin dealer named Eddie, Booth learned the meaning of Temptation. Her name was Temperance. "What do we do now," she asked with that wide-eyed innocence that made him yearn to pull her over the transmission and show her what cars were made for.

Controlling his teenaged impulses took every last drop of self control, which left precious few resources available for answering even the most basic questions. Booth nearly stuttered, "It's a stakeout. We converse." And somehow, through the fog of attraction that coiled around him, he managed to bicker with her just enough to resist kissing her until God at last in His Infinite Mercy ended the stakeout a few minutes later by sending a customer to Eddie. Just being that close to a woman he wanted that badly and not giving in to his baser urges would surely end up taking decades off his projected stay in purgatory.

Maybe that was why God had put her in his path, Booth mused, because resisting her was either going to strengthen his character or slowly drive him insane. But nothing could explain what Camille Saroyan was doing here, or why she was so intent on disruption. Unless, had the devil put his two cents in as well, in the form of his crafty former girlfriend…? Could it get any worse?

Oh, yes indeed it could get worse. Tension sizzled between him and Cam, who continued to flirt with him even while she insisted she'd taken the job because it had superior tools. Their old, flirtatious competition was in full swing, making him feel vaguely guilty. When he told Cam he needed Brennan for the afternoon (because of that dreadful phone call), she smirked. "Okay."

He felt the mockery, the implication behind Cam's knowing eyes. "It's about her mother's death. It's a legitimate case," he insisted, half realizing there was always some truth behind the truism of protesting too much. He had nothing to defend, nothing to feel guilty about.

Cam was a former street cop, and she knew him better than just about anyone. Her barb drew a little blood. "Plus, she dedicated her book to you."

He heard the jealousy cutting across like a knife edge. Shaking his head, needing to get away from the swampy turmoil of balancing Cam against Brennan, he nearly escaped. He'd just reached the door when Cam's suggestion that she was succeeding in her efforts to intimidate Brennan brought him back around with an outright laugh.

"Bones doesn't intimidate," he assured Cam proudly. He got up into Cam's space, turning the tables on his jealous former lover. "You've seen the way she stares at human remains before she makes a decision. You're human remains and, she hasn't made a decision yet."

It was Cam who ended up being intimidated, tag-teamed by Booth's molten intensity and Brennan's cool reserve. It didn't take Cam more than 30 seconds to realize she was going to sink without Booth's help, and Booth had just firmly thrown his lot in with Temperance Brennan. She swallowed her arrogance visibly. "How do I help her make the right decision?"

Success, Cam was asking the right question at last. He offered a sliver of friendly advice, glad that he'd actually paid attention to Brennan's complaints at lunch yesterday. "Go for the truth. Take care of her people."

They didn't quite resolve the issue with the phone call, other than to realize Brennan's father had somehow ordered the hit that killed her mother's killer. Her dismay at her father's apparently extensive criminal connections and ruthlessness made his heart ache and his head teem with questions.

When he finally dragged his partner back to her mother's grave the next day, exasperated that Brennan still did not get the point of talking to the dead, she resisted until he stepped away and made a show of turning his back. She sighed, spoke quietly to the headstone and as Brennan's heartfelt queries about what kind of man her father was reached him, he couldn't help sneaking a few glances her way.

As soon as she noticed that, Brennan turned sarcastic skeptic again. "I didn't get any answers," she insisted, throwing her arms wide as if daring the universe to contradict her.

But there was an answer there, in the form of a tiny silver dolphin resting at the edge of the stone. Her father had left it there. Booth retrieved it.

"You're tainting evidence," she stammered.

"It's not that kind of evidence," he told her gently. Handing over the tiny token, he watched her lifting it towards the sun.

"It's beautiful," she admitted.

Booth trained his gaze on her, the titian halo of her sunlit hair, the strong lines of her jaw and slender nose. Her eyes, so full of curiosity and intelligence, now narrowed in speculation and uncertainty as she tried to puzzle out what it meant.

"Yeah," he whispered. He wasn't talking about the dolphin. In that moment, no one else existed. Right then, it was official: Seeley Booth was hopelessly in love with his partner.

~Q~

"I really wish you would stop flirting with me around Brennan," Booth told Cam a few days later.

Cam's raised brows and pursed lips gave away her amusement. She couldn't resist jabbing him a little—either he would squirm like a worm on a hook, or he'd let slip what she really wanted to know. "Why, is your girlfriend getting jealous?"

"She's not my girlfriend," he said sharply.

"Oh, right. Just your '_partner and friend_.' Her feelings for you, inked and published for posterity." Brennan might not be his girlfriend, but he sure as hell kept looking at his 'partner' like he was going to jump her any moment. Cam pushed back from the cold storage unit with the tray of histology slides she'd prepared earlier.

"Sounds like you're the one who's jealous," he muttered.

Choosing one of the histology slides from the Richardson autopsy to check under the compound microscope, she shot him a dirty look. "I don't see why you're so hot to defend her. She's not your type."

He laughed. "I have a 'type' now?"

Her knowing smirk grated on him and she knew it. "Blonde, beautiful lawyer, stacked on the bottom, vacant on top. Ring any bells for you, Seeley?"

"You're not any of those, _Camille_."

"I knew you before you started going for shallow. I guess Dr. Brennan is dragging you back into the deep end then." Quirking a brow, she waited for the next canoe departing for the river called denial. She was pretty sure Seeley was going to be on it.

_You can say that again_, he thought tiredly. Brennan was driving him crazy today with her diatribes against monogamy, marriage, and motherhood. She'd become just as irritating and prickly these last two weeks as last year when they could barely stand each other. He was about ready to either strangle her or shove her up against a wall and keep her sharp tongue busy in more pleasant ways.

The other woman who was driving him crazy sat just two feet to his right, gazing intently into the microscope. He still couldn't believe Camille Saroyan had become a squint. What happened to the street smart smart-ass he'd practically grown up with?

"Where are you coming up with this fantasy? There's nothing going on between Bones and me." Except that he knew he was practically panting after her, the lust and longing no doubt painfully clear to everyone but Brennan herself.

Yep, there he went, floating away and sounding almost like he believed it. Cam lifted herself away from the microscope and darted him a classic Cheshire grin. "Good thing, because otherwise you'd be squirming with guilt."

"What?"

"The way you're flirting with me would lay you out if you really were seeing her." She almost laughed at the sight of his horrified and thoroughly bewildered expression.

"I'm not 'seeing her!' And I'm not flirting with you. You're flirting with me."

"You're letting me," she countered. Getting up, stepping right into his space, Cam leaned in to whisper. "You're enjoying this game of cat and mouse."

She watched his pupils expand, his cheeks darken. Seeley Booth jumped back so fast it might seem his tail had been stepped on. Or caught in a trap.

"Who's the cat," he retorted. And who was the mouse…. In a showdown between Brennan and Saroyan, his money would be split. Brennan was honest and naïve, but she never backed down and she was a hell of a lot smarter than anyone he'd ever met. Cam was self assured, clever and far more devious.

Cam fairly purred in satisfaction.

Booth groaned. This was turning into the biggest mess he'd ever wanted out of.

~Q~

Cam turned up the heat, and despite his better judgment he felt himself responding. She'd enter a room and flick her eyes over him. He'd be drawn towards Cam for reasons that he couldn't define. They'd end up talking to each other almost as if no one else was there.

On the day they flirted with each other blatantly in Brennan's office, he knew he'd gone too far but for the life of him couldn't figure out what was going on. Cam oozed interest while his partner was growing ever more distant. Brennan snarled and stalked out of her own office in fury, ostensibly ticked off about Cam's interpretation of existing facts of the case.

Yet when he was alone with Brennan, he felt her pull on him as well, and it was an entirely different kind of pull. With Cam he wanted to compete, to scratch and claw and feel her fight back, but the moment she was out of sight she also fell out of mind. With Brennan, the rivalry was intellectual and the sense of urgency in protecting her never went away, and he never stopped thinking about her except for the moments when Cam distracted him. He wanted to be close to Brennan, physically in her space, his hand on her somewhere, anywhere, as long as he was able to make some kind of contact. When he wasn't with her, the biggest priority was finding an excuse to see her again. Booth was starting to think he craved Temperance Brennan like an addiction.

Alone with Brennan she pulled him in, yet as soon as Cam entered the scene he felt pulled in two. The confrontation with Cam had turned inevitable and was drawing closer to a head. After smoothly slipping in some subtle advice that she might need to relinquish a bit of control, Booth tried to reassure Brennan that _their_ team dynamic, the way he and she worked together, wasn't going to change because of Cam. Brennan relaxed.

He thought it was going to be fine for about three hours.

~Q~

"You need to do something," she sputtered.

Booth looked up into the flashing eyes of Angela Montenegro, startled at the furious intensity she'd brought into his office. He wasn't even sure how she'd gotten into the Hoover, and here she stood in front of his desk, shooting flames from her mouth and eyes.

"What…?" Bewildered over what he'd done that called for him to rectify it by 'doing something,' he waited for her to inform him of his transgression.

"Your girlfriend just threatened to fire Brennan!"

_What girlfriend_, he started to say, but the denial died at the way Angela's expression dared him to pretend he didn't know exactly what female had the power to fire Brennan. When he didn't argue, she started pacing, her agitation tumbling out almost frantically.

"You know how Brennan operates! You've seen it. She always encouraged Hodgins and Zack to work together, to design experiments. You know, she just let us all be the experts in our own areas. Now Dr. Saroyan is saying no experiments. No collaboration without her express approval. But the worst thing is, she won't let Brennan follow the evidence. Brennan would kill both of us at what I'm about to suggest—that she follows her instincts when it comes to evidence—but you know that's what she does! That's why she's so damn brilliant. They finally came to blows because Brennan won't give in."

Angela paused, drew a breath deep enough to move the curtains. Cutting Booth with an eviscerating glare, she finished. "Your girlfriend has announced she's looking for Brennan's replacement. A different forensic anthropologist."

"She's not my girlfriend," Booth insisted, then almost cringed at the rude awakening that he'd refuted the identical accusation about Brennan just a few days ago. "And you need to stop telling Bones who you think I've slept with."

Angela's brows drew together in a finely arched M of anger. "I don't '_think_,' when it comes to things like this. I _know_."

Booth sighed. "I don't have any power over the Jeffersonian. Cam is the boss."

Leaning in, her warning came through loud and clear. "If Brennan leaves the Jeffersonian, the entire forensics unit will collapse. I will go with her. Zack is her grad student, he goes where she does. Hodgins won't stay. It will be just you and Cam, Agent Casanova. You'd better do something damn quick."

She was gone in a whirlwind, leaving Booth breathless.

~Q~

He found Cam in her autopsy suite and let her fill him in on the investigation. Cam was the one who brought it up.

"What would happen if Dr. Brennan left the Jeffersonian?"

Not for nothing had Seeley Booth been mostly successful as a gambler. Keeping his expression vaguely amused, he burst out a cynical laugh as a way to release tension and simultaneously let Cam know just how ridiculous the idea was. "The squints would flee this institution like the French Army."

Cam's poker face needed work. He could see that he'd just rattled her cage. "And you…?"

Angela's threats still in mind, he allowed an enigmatic smile. "I do as I'm ordered."

Cam nodded, looked even more cautious, clearly wondering who he was taking orders from. And then he knew. He just _knew_ that she'd been flirting with him openly in front of Brennan, gauging his reaction, as a test run. As he'd responded, she'd gotten bolder, edging the competition out. Cam was sure she knew which way the wind would blow.

He asked what was going on, wondering just how far she would go to test his loyalty. The game of Cat and Mouse was once more afoot, only this time he was the cat.

Having read the players, Booth wasn't at all surprised when Cam made her boldest play. "What if I fired her?"

He pushed off from his casual lounge against a file cabinet. Stalking toward Cam, not letting her gaze go, Booth pushed himself right into her space. He felt a sort of magnetic energy vibrating between them that nearly rivaled what he so often felt with Brennan. "I'm with Bones, all the way. Don't doubt it for a second."

Mission accomplished. He watched the fire die in her eyes when he declared his allegiance. Cam wilted just a bit. She folded, and Booth breathed a partial sigh of relief. If Cam had fired Brennan, not only would he have been forced to watch out for Angela's vengeance, but he knew his career would end up in the crapper. He'd reached the point where working without Brennan was unacceptable.

Seeing the slightly defeated cast to Cam's face, he sighed again. There was no reason to leave her feeling like she'd lost something. Knowing Brennan would be pretty upset if she knew what he was about to do, he decided he could pave the way toward a ceasefire between Cam and Brennan if he just shared one little, significant detail. "Maybe the reason you've gotten off on the wrong foot with Brennan with this case, is because she was a foster kid."

Cam's face rode a train of emotions starting with shocked, followed by annoyed, then sympathetic and finally ending at embarrassed. "Why didn't she tell me that?"

Booth shrugged. "She doesn't do that."

But he did. And it might have worked because after that, things finally started to calm down.

~Q~

This was why Booth knew he had to chose Temperance Brennan. She was his partner, his back-up, his brain, his heart, his conscience. He was those things for her as well. She was starting to be everything to him, and the night she saved his life drove home to him just how much he depended on her.

For the last several months he'd fooled himself into thinking he'd saved her, had healed her, but only now could he acknowledge that she was saving him as well. That cretin would have killed him. After breaking his arm and knocking his service weapon away, Booth was down and at the mercy of a determined killer. Larkin had stood over Booth, his arm raised to bash his brains in with a rusty pipe just like a suspect in that stupid Clue game, only it happened in the dark sorting area of an abandoned post office instead of in some fusty salon.

The thing is, Brennan shouldn't have been there. He'd left her with Helen Majors and told her not to move. But telling Temperance Brennan not to do something was pretty much giving her the invitation to do exactly what had just been prohibited. Call it instinct or call it rebellion, she'd gone after him and took that one lethal shot that had echoed his shot at Special Agent Jamie Kenton a year ago.

Roles reversed. Brennan saves Booth.

The shock in her beautiful eyes, the way she blinked and gasped and stood frozen told Booth she wasn't going to be all right even though the shooting was justified. "I had to do it," she whispered, stunned at the rush of horror sweeping over her. And though broken bones hurt a lot worse than you would think, he'd immediately ignored the fire in his arm and in his back where the pipe had gouged his flesh to tell her she'd done the right thing.

When he found her sitting dejectedly alone in the loft at the lab, nursing water on the rocks and reassuring herself that it hadn't been wrong to kill a killer, her sorrow severed something in him. There's more than one kind of love and what he felt for Temperance Brennan went far beyond sex.

A single tear fell from her eyes onto a photo of Epps's earliest victim. "Look at what I did," she mourned, speaking of more than marring a photo.

Booth felt a little jolt of pain. She didn't deserve this. She'd saved his life and the price was so steep. Leaning over to her, reassuring her with the offer of a stupid plastic pig named Jasper, he looked into his partner's eyes and knew he'd chosen the right woman. He couldn't lose her.

He could never do anything that would risk losing her.

~Q~

* * *

**Author's Note:** I love season 2 almost as much as season 1. Writing this chapter was a lot of fun because I got to introduce Cam and watch Booth squirm. What was Cam up to? Most importantly, there was one line Booth uttered that has ALWAYS intrigued me: what did he mean when he said, "I do as I'm ordered...?" What was that mysterious little smile when he said it? Who ordered him? What did they order him to do? Fascinating...

I have four more chapters planned and I am going to continue to work on this, but updates are going to be slow.


	7. Rebecca On the Reach for Rapport

**Author's Note:** People always assume Brennan doesn't know what's going on when it comes to emotional matters. I disagree. She often knows what is happening, just not always the why behind it. She's not shy about asking, which can make for some very awkward conversations for a certain FBI guy.

* * *

_The Catalyst in the Partnership_

_**7.**_

_**Rebecca – On the Reach for Rapport**_

_"I think that we just feel what used to be there. And we miss it."  
_

"Seeley, what are you doing here?"

On a quiet Saturday afternoon Rebecca posed awkwardly in the door, her cell phone pressed against her thigh in a very peculiar manner, as if she'd just been caught misusing it.

"I stopped in to give this back to Parker. He left it last Sunday." Booth held out a school library book and glanced into the living room beyond her. "Is he here?"

"No. He's over at Logan's house."

Booth stepped back a bit, finally noticing her odd behavior and wondering if he'd interrupted something. "So, you and Brent must be enjoying a little alone time, then?"

There it was again, the odd little flicker of something in her eyes. Rebecca sighed and suddenly lifted the phone away from her leg. "Steve, I'll call you later okay? Something just came up."

"Who's Steve?"

"No one."

Oh yeah, that's what it was. She was lying. "What happened to Brent? You just got done insisting that you loved him and I should back off."

She backed out of the doorway, letting him in so the argument didn't escalate into the hallway of her apartment building. "We're on a break. And what I do in the meantime is none of your business, Seeley."

"What kind of message do you think that sends to Parker, huh? Brent's a decent guy."

"You don't even like him!" she accused. "You and your damn background checks."

"I was just being careful. You never know these days."

Rebecca groaned and rolled her eyes. "You were just hoping it would end because you couldn't chase him off with your FBI intimidation tactics. I'm getting sick and tired of having to parade men past you for inspection and approval."

Booth stared at her in astonishment, confused that just a couple of weeks after swearing her undying love, she'd apparently dumped a man he had reluctantly begun to approve of. "Brent was okay. Parker really liked him and you swore you were in love with him. What the hell happened?"

"I just needed some time to think."

This was unbelievable, and yet really he shouldn't be surprised. It was Rebecca all over: irrational, incomprehensible decisions that she made in a snap and she never changed course afterwards no matter how ill-advised the original decision ended up being. He'd always wondered if it had something to do with pride. "Think?! About what? The fact that I liked him so there must be something wrong with him?"

"Get over yourself, Seeley. Not everything I do is about you."

Disgusted, he sneered, "So then who is Steve? Is this how you're '_thinking_,' by moving on to another conquest already?"

"Who the hell do you think you are," she hissed. "Love 'em and leave 'em Seeley Booth. How many girls have you charmed your way through, huh? Shall we take a body count?"

She had no right to bring up his previous girlfriends, but Rebecca somehow had a list at the ready. She started ticking them off on her fingers. "Tessa. That other lawyer, Amy? Huh? Me. Cam." And then, to his horror and disbelief, she rattled off several more names that included girls he'd known—in the Biblical way—in high school, college, and beyond.

This was keeping score with a Guinness Book of World Records level of fanaticism. Defensive and irritated that she had more ammunition than he'd like, he tried to stop the litany by getting into her space and pointing out the fact that most of them were irrelevant to his current complaint. "Most of those were before Parker was even born!"

Breathing hard, eyes locked, something inside of him raged to be let loose. Adrenaline streamed through his fingers, making them itch to tangle in her hair and shut her up in whatever way would work most effectively. Kill her, kick her shins, kiss her until she begged for mercy. The aching familiarity of this feeling was what brought him up short.

The eyes that flashed in his mind glinted steely grey with quicksilver changes of light, so unyielding and so freakishly intelligent that he wasn't quite sure she was human. The lips that parted were soft, faintly coral, a passage to bring forth words that illuminated the most brilliant mind he'd ever encountered. She could argue him into the ground, she never relented. She was a force of nature and the tool of God, sent to this earth to torment him with her cursedly beautiful curves. And that voice, so low it throbbed in his groin even as she drove him insane with non-stop arguing. There were times when he'd wanted to smother his partner with his tongue down her throat and his hands tangling in that soft chestnut hair while she moaned and he crushed his body into hers. Their arguments brought him to the brink of eruption, just like right now.

It had been that way with Rebecca, too. In the beginning.

Rebecca was still piling it on, her anger bubbling over like an agitated bottle of beer. "You've never had a stable relationship with a woman in your life and you have the audacity to stand there and criticize me?"

She was right, damn her. Every girl he'd ever taken to his bed had eventually ended up somewhere in his past. He had a terrible track record when it came to relations with the opposite sex. Making commitments, finding the right woman who would get to know him and stick around anyway? He was a complete failure in that department.

But she was also wrong. There was one relationship that stood out, one that _was_ stable and had saved his life, metaphorically and literally. One woman he adored and would do anything for. One woman Parker knew and liked. _When can I see Dr. Bones again?_ had become a recent refrain on his weekend visits. (Because Brennan was patient and kind. She would get down on her knees and look him in the eyes, as if he were important enough for her to give him all of her attention. She would answer his questions immediately, using the largest words in the English language, causing Parker to giggle and declare, "she talks funny, Daddy!" Then Brennan would wrinkle up her slender nose and look so confused that Parker would laugh again and thrill with the power of being able to confuse a genius with nothing more than his childish enthusiasm.)

Kids can often be excellent judges of character, which was the reason Booth had decided to accept Brent; and Parker's approval of Brennan was just one more reason he knew she was special. This was that one relationship with the one woman he would never risk, and he would never forgive himself if he allowed sex to screw it up, no matter how loudly his body screamed for release with her and only her.

His track record might not be great, but neither was Rebecca's. "At least I haven't cheated."

"Way to make an assumption," she snapped. "And what about poor Tessa. Didn't you dump her for that woman you're working with?"

It boiled over at that, her insinuation hitting so close to the target—he had begun pining after his partner and yes that fact had played a huge part in Tessa's bitter exit—that Booth's merely human body could no longer contain the desire for the one woman he knew he could never have. Rebbecca had to go and make it sound so sordid when she implied Brennan would have condoned such a thing that he had no choice but to react.

He growled a warning, "Leave Bones out of this!"

"Are you screwing her, Seeley? Or did she turn you down."

If he'd taken a moment to think, he might have understood that somehow the suggestion of sex with Brennan was what set him off. Their coming together was swift and sensational, and completely devoid of reason. The energy between them exploded in a feverish mauling, clothes flying, their bodies straining, and with every insane invasion into his ex-girlfriend's body, his partner's voice moaned in his head while her ecstatic face danced inside of his eyelids. When it reached its pinnacle, his body turned itself inside out while he heard _her_ expelling his name against his throat in an orgasmic gasp.

He opened his bleary eyes, still stunned by the force of it, and looked into Rebecca's cloudy blues. Not the shimmering grey he'd expected, not the woman he wanted to find sated and supine beneath him.

He'd used Rebecca. He knew he had and the self-loathing was almost more than he could stand. It was possibly the best sex of his life, so naturally he felt so disgusted with himself that he went straight to the confessional. He told himself it was a one-time lapse that would never happen again.

On the other hand, over the next few days he realized that the illicit interlude with Rebecca had given him enough of a release that he was able to work next to Brennan without imagining fifty different ways to seduce his partner. So, thinking he might have found the answer to his problem, he started another argument with Rebecca as soon as the effect wore off. She seemed just as happy to be using him and really, the sex was incredible, so they were even.

Each time they swore it was the last time even as they dropped the pretense of fighting.

It was all going pretty well, until Brennan caught them.

~Q~

They met at a construction site not more than an hour after the most awkward telephone conversation he'd ever had with his partner. As they were making their way into the half-built house, Brennan leaned in and offered quietly, "Sorry if I interrupted anything." She sounded mostly sincere, like a good partner would. But there was the faintest grin as well.

"What. Oh, no. No, you didn't." It was Rebecca who had answered his phone, still panting and breathless, but they had in fact just finished ... up ... when Brennan had called. So no, technically, she didn't interrupt them. Had she called two minutes earlier, however... He flushed at the thought.

"Good." She was still smiling. More than likely she meant it as a subtle tease. She had no idea, none at all. Case closed.

If he'd have left it there, she definitely would have dropped the subject. She might even have believed him, that nothing had happened between him and Rebecca, and certainly nothing that involved him thinking of Bones while it went on. But he couldn't let it go because the very idea of Brennan guessing what was really going on had Booth in a near panic. "If you must know, Rebecca, my ex, she dropped by my place to pick up a comic for Parker."

"Okay." Her tone had turned skeptical now, and seemed to convey a wish that he'd stop talking about it. Her smile had begun to fade, looking more than a bit strained.

"She just so happened to pick up the phone. That's it. You know? Nothing more, nothing less." _Good God, man, will you shut up!_ His higher faculties had finally sputtered back into gear and warned him too late that Shakespeare wasn't wrong about protesting too much. Every cop knew overly enthusiastic denials almost always signaled the presence of comparable levels of evasive guilt.

Flatly, and clearly annoyed now, Brennan shot an exasperated glare at him. "I'm sorry, did I _say_ I must know?"

Brennan pulled ahead and left him behind to stall and realize that indeed, she hadn't asked. It was his guilty conscience that had insisted on a defense that hadn't been necessary. Where before there was a simple tease, now there was definite knowledge. He'd protested too much and outed himself.

It went from bad to worse when Cam brought it up. Brennan may not have asked, but she apparently hadn't hesitated to mention his love life to her boss. Irritated, he stalked over to her and let his displeasure be known. "You gossiped about me and Rebecca to Cam?"

Brennan was wearing her second skin, the fitted lab coat, with her hair pulled up in the messy pony tail he always found so sweetly sexy. Why did his partner have to be so effortlessly beautiful? As she leaned over her microscope, showing him the smooth curve of her exposed nape, he grimaced and threw himself backwards into a chair a few feet away. It was safer not to get too close to that tempting throat when he wanted to either wrap his hands around it or start nuzzling her soft skin with his feverish lips.

The tension was killing him.

Blissfully unaware of his seething turmoil, she didn't even look up from the microscope. "I was not gossiping."

Booth gnashed his teeth furiously. "Oh, really. So then, what would you call it?"

"Merely sharing a point of interest." She replied, half distracted by whatever she was examining through the binocular lenses.

"Great." Booth stood up again, too agitated to stay still. She and Cam had shared a catty moment over _him_, their only common interest. "So what am I, the world's largest ball of string?"

"Not _you_, your behavior." Brennan turned away from her science at last to level him with her vaguely amused observation. "It's a textbook example of just how helpless we higher primates can be to our biological urges." Her eyes and face were steady and impassive, betraying nothing but casual interest in the philosophy of the sex drive in primates. It was nothing personal, or so she seemed to be saying: he fascinated her every bit as much as the bony whatever-it-was that she'd been looking at a moment previous, and concerned her half as much.

Even so, Booth scoffed, highly uncomfortable with how damn right she was. "I'm not helpless."

_Who are you kidding? One smile from Bones and you're as helpless as a horny teenager plunked down in front of a naked supermodel_, his hormone-driven brain taunted. He could barely keep his hands to himself and the only thing that had helped was, unfortunately, the impassioned and frantic lapses of control with Rebecca.

"Hmmm." She dismissed his protest like a disapproving librarian and returned to her microscope. "He's not elderly."

She'd changed the topic just that fast, but Booth was still a step behind, rebutting her evaluation of his biological urges. "I can control my, uh…" He gestured to the source of his libido but her back was turned. She was not paying attention, a fact that finally got Booth's attention when he realized she'd said something about not being elderly. "Who?"

"Our victim." Brennan stood back and pointed out what she'd just noticed on a monitor. "You see these marrow cells? The lack of collagen. It indicates Osteogenesis Imperfecta."

Sensing his lack of comprehension, she explained more concisely. "Brittle Bones Disease."

Booth told himself he had to walk over to her just to get a closer look at the osteographs or whatever. It wasn't because he wanted to be close enough to catch a whiff of her spicy coriander scent or to feel the electric pulse of her magnetism in his blood. It was only to get a better view, but of course that meant he was standing right next to her, falling under her spell again. He shrouded himself in impatience, knowing she was completely right about his 'biological urges' and, once he got over his initial fear that she was onto him, being reduced to a helpless bundle of hormones in her eyes actually ticked him off.

So it came out rather snide, the question he had. "And that's supposed to tell me that he's not … old?"

"Not necessarily." Brennan turned all the way towards him, her tempting body far too close as she tipped her head and settled in to gather further information. Her ability to multitask was phenomenal in itself, and she put it to solid use whenever an intriguing puzzle was at hand ... like him. He should have realized his contradictory behavior was begging to be explained because she knew him by now. She knew he didn't cheat and she knew Rebecca was supposed to be in love with a man named Brent. "And if you're not helpless, why did you sleep with her?"

His mouth dropped open. She had him dead to rights, but he tried to play it cool. Scowling, he pointed out, "Oh, I don't recall saying that I _did_."

And hoped that she would accept it unquestioned. And for the love of God and all that's Holy, that she would _please_ show some mercy and stop talking about it.

Brennan smirked then, knowing he was cornered. She was terrible at reading people, but even she could manage to decipher his flashing neon discomfort. She knew she had Booth pinned to the very wall and almost seemed to gloat over it. "Well, you didn't have to. I could hear it in your voice. I may as well have walked in on you having sex."

Again, he began sputtering out a desperate denial. How the hell was she able to tell? Where did that cluelessness go? Not wanting to talk to her about sex at all (not unless they were planning when and where and how often), he insisted on telling an obvious lie. "Well, you didn't. And we weren't."

And it was patently obvious that she didn't believe a word of it.

"It's nothing to be ashamed of, Booth. Humans act upon a hierarchy of needs and sex is very highly ranked. It's an anthropological inevitability."

That itching sensation had returned to his fingers, making them curl into frustrated fists as the level of irritation with her mounted. He had a sudden urge to throw her over an examination table and once she was down ... inevitability was right. Maybe she was correct that there were some biological urges he was helpless to resist, like the urge to either kiss her or remove himself from the source of temptation. "Thank you, Bones. I really appreciate you boiling me down to your anthropological inevitabilities."

"Sure," she agreed softly, her brow furrowed with puzzlement as she finally figured out he was annoyed with her. Sporadic cluelessness, just what the doctor ordered.

Fight or flight. That was another biological imperative.

He insisted they split up to track down patients with Osteogenesis Imperfecta, needing time away from her to regain his sanity. Brennan's feelings seemed a bit hurt, but he would rather apologize later than be forced to explain why he needed to make a stop at St. Patrick's for some quality knee time before his confessor.

~Q~

"Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been four days since my last confession." Only four days. He'd certainly managed to pile up quite a list of transgressions in such a short time.

The hidden priest listened patiently while Booth tried to make sense of his indiscretions. "I've been having lustful thoughts. There's this woman that I work with. She's beautiful, intelligent, just ... amazing. I can't stop thinking about her."

"Is she aware of your feelings for her?"

"No," Booth insisted quickly, shaking his head. "She can't know. I can't..."

"Is she married?" the priest asked sharply.

"No, she's single. I mean, that's not the reason."

"Then what is it?"

"We work together, partners, and we've gotten really close. She makes me a better man; she's the reason I stopped gambling. She's so good and honest that I want to be good enough for her, but I'm not. I never will be."

The priest was thoughtful for a moment. "Then, my son, you need to be respectful of her as more than an object of sexual pleasure. Thinking lustful thoughts about her is disrespectful."

"I know. That's why I tried..." He groaned, dropping his ashamed head onto his clasped hands. "My ex-girlfriend and I got into an argument a couple of weeks ago and sort of fell into bed together. We ... you know. And while it was happening, I was thinking of _her_. The whole time. And we did that again last week, and again this morning. God, it's wrong, I _know_ it's wrong. I don't know what to do."

A rustling from the other side of the confessional preceded the compassionate lecture. "You know what you need to do. You must treat both of these women with the respect they deserve. Your ex-girlfriend is not a substitute for your co-worker. Of course God does not condone fornication and you must pay the penance for that. But my son, seriously consider the damage you are causing to this woman you're using. That's a sin too, just as much as the lustful thoughts and the fornication."

"I know."

Another pause, and the priest reminded him of the conditions for confession. "The sacrament of reconciliation requires the the earnest desire not to repeat the sin."

"I don't want to do it again, I really don't." He didn't quite know how he was going to navigate the Scylla and Charybdis of his desire for Temperance Brennan, but going back to Rebecca for another round of pretend was not an option.

"You must be honest with both of these women. If an honest and proper relationship with your coworker is not possible, then you must divert your energies into an _appropriate_ channel; for example, a suitable and chaste relationship with someone else."

As the penance was set, Booth felt relief. This was the reason he loved being Catholic. The guilt wasn't so crushing now, and he felt like he knew what he had to do. Two apologies and some explanations were called for. He would start with Brennan.

~Q~

While they were waiting in the observation room for their suspects to meet, Booth decided it was time to start explaining his convoluted relationship with Rebecca to Brennan. Briefly he related the highlights: They dated, she got pregnant, he proposed, she declined.

"You've told me this before," Brennan reminded him. "Not that you've ever said why."

Sometimes Temperance Brennan could be difficult for him to read because she did not think or operate like any other human being he'd ever met. Which 'why' was she looking for? The 'why' he gave her was the reason Rebecca had given him for turning him down. Rebecca's reasons included that she wanted to go to grad school and she didn't want to be boxed in with marriage. Brennan, always pragmatic, immediately pointed out that doing so as a single mother would be much harder. Booth countered that obviously Rebecca didn't act on logic.

"Do you still love her," Brennan asked, her voice slightly more gentle than it had been. He replied sincerely: no, not like he used to. With a cheeky little grin, Brennan inquired, "Then why can't it just be sex?"

He met her eyes intensely, deeply serious. "There's nothing 'just' about sex, Bones."

That way she had, the direct gaze, hit him with the force of frozen skies and endless expanses of ice that froze him solid. He couldn't move or even think when she trapped him like that, lost in her endlessly silver eyes. The low thrill of her cool, hazy voice made him shiver. "But all mammals need it. That release of serotonin, the rush of endorphins."

Her clinical words that only hinted at the pleasures of the flesh still managed to make his body react as strongly as if she'd touched him in all the right places. All the blood seemed to rush south and his heart exploded into a frenzy, his body going into a state of hyper awareness. He was halfway to ecstasy on just the sound of her voice alone. He was trembling with want, fixed in place while every cell in his body quivered for her and she just kept ... talking.

Those incredible eyes held him imprisoned in a cage of desire. "Naturally, you seek it with someone with whom you share a sexual rapport."

_Bloody hell, does she **know** what she's doing to me?!_

No, of course she didn't.

As her words sank slowly into the sexual haze, he grasped one of them and felt cast adrift by how wrong it all was. Rapport. It would have to include things like attraction, trust, familiarity and affection. It was everything he had with Brennan, everything he wanted: she was right about that. But, Brennan was trying to tell him he had rapport with Rebecca and thus the sex was understandable. And that was all wrong.

"Rapport. Right. _That's_ the word." He dismissed the word almost harshly, disgusted with himself. _I've been using Rebecca; there is **no** rapport there._

"I know when I'm in need of a release, there's a former partner or two I'm sure I could call."

The way she'd worded it wasn't completely lost on him. She had not said, 'I can call,' or 'I have called.' No, she'd said, 'I'm sure I _could_ call.' It was all hypothetical, which meant she hadn't actually ever done so. Temperance Brennan had offered her own squinty brand of absolution, describing what he was doing without articulating the why behind it. She had no idea he was so riled up over _her_ that he could barely think. He wasn't sure whether to be relieved or to cry.

Booth tried to shake off his painful discomfort with this entire topic, needing desperately to get the situation with Rebecca resolved as quickly as possible. "Okay, Bones, thanks, so much. I feel _so much_ better now."

He wasn't angry with her. She'd tried in her awkward, science-laden way to make him feel better about what was going on. If it weren't for the fact that he knew he was mistreating his ex while harboring sinful thoughts towards his mercifully oblivious partner, he might have felt good about Brennan's effort. As it was, he felt worse, and knew it was all a mess of his own making. The one thing that was definitely missing with Rebecca, was rapport.

~Q~

They'd arrested Larry's boss for murder and found a loophole that let the members of his First (three) Wives club off easy. After all, they'd only faked a murder to cover up a suicide, which in turn had been intended to cover up the actual accidental manslaughter. While Brennan puttered around cleaning up files and organizing her desk, Booth sank down onto her sofa and watched her work.

She finally remarked, "So, you never said how it ended up with Rebecca."

"Well, it ended. The only time we'll be spending together is with Parker."

"You sure that's what you want?" Pausing with with a few slender files tucked against her like a shield, her question caught him off guard.

Yes, he was absolutely sure he did not want to continue things with Rebecca. He wasn't sure what she was asking, what it meant that she'd tilted her head a little and actually looked a bit surprised. As if, to her anthropological way of thinking, he was crazy to let a satisfying sexual fling with Rebecca go. Maybe he was.

But there were more things to consider here than his raging biological urges. Did she even know that? Lifting his head, he faced both the woman and her question. "You know what, Bones? It might all be anthropology to you, but there are certain people that you just can't sleep with."

_Like you,_ he silently added. Sex with Brennan would turn them inside-out, upside-down and all kinds of backwards. He held her eyes, noting she'd gone perfectly still and almost breathless while he spoke to her. He could almost swear she wanted him as badly as he wanted her: all the more reason to fear their fire that would burn fast and flame out like a meteor. "I mean, you can pretend that it's just sex. You can lie to yourself and say that it's all good, but there's too many strings, and too much at stake. You know? Too much to lose."

There's far, far too much to lose.

They both stood frozen, gazing at each other for a single, endless second.

"Yeah. I can see that," Brennan finally agreed softly, breaking the silence but not the spell.

"It's over." Booth shrugged. Rising to his feet, the gravity of her pulled him over to her, over to the nexus of her scent and her warmth. Somehow, he trusted himself enough to flash her one of his best, knee-weakening grins. Or maybe it was Brennan he trusted, knowing she was strong enough to resist him. "I'd appreciate your support in that."

"I will," she promised, her voice betraying none of the sensual turmoil that gripped him. "And if you should slip I will … keep my mouth shut about it." She grinned a little in return, probably promising both to refrain from gossiping, and to refrain from commenting as well. It was his business, was the silent message.

"Thank you. But, it's not like I'm going to—"

"No, I mean with anybody," she assured him. Another teasing little grin danced across her lips. "I mean, I'm sure Rebecca's not your only option for satisfying biological urges."

If only she was one of his options, he knew he would gladly make her his only option. Their eyes held as he imagined leaning slowly into her, taking her slowly, exquisitely under his control. His aching lips would graze over the shiny satin of hers. He would brush and lick, nuzzle and plunge. She would taste ... spicy, an exotic blend of ginger and bite as her own natural aggression would surely rise up to meet him in playful nips and gusting sighs. He would press his nose against the soft flesh behind her ear, breathing her into him, and his palms would skim down her slender back to bring her body fully into contact with his.

_Taste her_, a diabolical little voice teased. ._Just once more, what's the harm? You've tasted her once before..._

He was going to. Why not? She was watching him, her eyes wide and unblinking, and the curves of her body called out to him: _come, join us_. So he was going to...

The moment broke when they were interrupted by Angela & Hodgins. Distantly, through the fog of almost falling, Booth heard Angela question him about Rebecca by way of a comment from Cam, and salvation hit. He bolted for safety, leaving his off-limits partner safely in the company of chaperones.

~Q~

Still breathing hard from the mix of danger and unsatisfied longing, Booth shut the door to Cam's office and leaned against it. "You need to stop spreading gossip about me," he commanded.

Camille Saroyan had never been one to be easily intimidated, not even by the clearly aroused male who stood darkly in front of her only exit. "Okay," she agreed mildly.

Taking a long, deep breath knowing it would do nothing to quell the fires burning under his skin, he looked at her in a hard, assessing way. The priest definitely didn't have this in mind, but it just might work. "I have a proposition for you."

Raising one cynical brow, Cam let her gaze wander all over him, noting every detail of his agitation and then she waited.

"You've been flirting, laying it on thick, and I need..."

"An outlet," she suggested knowingly. "So you won't maul your partner?"

He lifted a pained expression towards her. "Is it that obvious?"

She shrugged. "To me, it is."

"Do you think she knows?" He thought back to their conversation in the observation room, what Brennan had suggested about needing a former partner for sexual release. He thought back to only moments ago, when he essentially had already decided to risk kissing her and ruining everything.

Cam shook her head with something like pity. "No, Seeley. Dr. Brennan thinks you are still in love with Rebecca."

That came as a very unexpected surprise. "What?"

"That's how it came up in conversation, she was worried that Rebecca would hurt you if she's still involved with Brent."

"So it wasn't gossip," he realized. And that's why she'd asked if he was sure he wanted to end things with Rebecca. He was always getting it wrong where Brennan was concerned. Booth sighed heavily then shook his head.

"So, an outlet," Cam repeated. "What are the terms?"

He met her honestly. The priest had suggested a more appropriate relationship, and being up front with Cam seemed his best option for now. It wasn't going to be chaste, but it would be honest. "Friends always. Fringe benefits as needed, from either side. But you need to understand that Brennan is always going to come first, okay? That is non-negotiable."

"I got it. I can live with that but, can she?"

"I don't know. But right now I _need_ this, Cam."

She smiled broadly, with just a hint of Tabby satisfaction. "What are friends for?"

~Q~

* * *

**Author's Note:** The main question that drove this piece was the question of why Booth went from Rebecca to Cam in basically one day. What was going on there...? What do you think, dear readers?

Though I've given one possible answer, this is just slightly AU. At the end of the episode Cam says they've been wicked, Booth says it's a mistake, and they both agree they won't do it again. Obviously, they do it again (and again) and... they stop calling it a mistake. By the next episode they actually seem to have become 'friends with benefits.' Cam admits bluntly that they've been sleeping together. What I've done is taken the liberty of having both be honest from the start about what they are to each other.

There's still more to come but as before, it's going to be another longish wait.


	8. Hank Lutrell On the Quest for Honesty

**Author's Note:** My apologies for the long wait in between chapters here. This is one is extra long to hopefully make up for the wait. There are two more stories planned for this series (and maybe three), but it's probably going to be a month or two before I get the next one finished. Thank you to everyone for your patience. I hope it's worth the wait.

According to the first flashback in episode 100 (Parts in the Sum of the Whole), Booth wasn't a gambler, he was a pool shark...

* * *

_The Catalyst in the Partnership_

_**8.**_

**_Hank Lutrell – On the Quest for Honesty_  
**

_"Why don't you tell your girlfriend?"_

That August morning in 2004 found Seeley Booth standing in a seedy pool hall tucked into Anacostia. He held a poor quality cue stick from the freebies stored along the back wall in an awkward stance, eyeing the table with nervous trepidation. Gnawing his lip, shifting his gaze from the cue ball to the striped 9 located at an impossible angle at the far end of the table, he considered the dare he'd just received. Finally, he admitted, "I don't know, man."

He clutched at the beer sitting a few feet away, lifted it and swigged back a gulp. Raising the glass to his companion, he explained. "Liquid courage."

"Yeah, like that's going to help."

Booth shrugged. "You're already into me $60 bucks. Now you want me to lay money on that shot. I don't wanna lose any more cash, you know? The girlfriend is gonna kill me as it is."

"Look, I'll tell you what. We'll go double or nothing."

"I don' have $60. All I got left ish a $20."

"Fine, $20."

Booth shook his head. "But you're gonna win 'cause that shot ish freaking improssible."

Sizing up Booth's increasingly slurred words, and slight wavering, the shark started the foundation of a sweet proposal. "You know, you're a sorry-ass mess. Look at you. Your old lady really that scary?"

"You don't know the half of it." Booth gulped another slog of beer and belched.

"Look, I'm giving you a chance. You're already screwed 'cause I got ya for $60. So you know, what's another $20 if you lose?"

"My ass on the street. This is rent money."

_What a loser,_ the shark thought. "Yeah but here's the thing. If you make that shot, I will double the whole deal. $160."

"No way." Booth wobbled and took in the table doubtfully. "No way you're paying me that much."

"Obviously you gotta make that shot, Tex."

Booth squinted at the distant 9. "So, let me get thish shtraight. I shink that ball, you're gonna pay me $160?"

"Yep. Isn't that what I just said?"

"But if I missh, all I gotta pay you ish $20?"

The sober man laughed, smelling the win off this drunken turkey. "You said it."

Booth looked the other direction, at the cue ball tucked behind the 8, snug up against the edge of the table. His eyes glittered. "Can't say no to that."

"Your girlfriend's going to chew you a new ass when you get home," the shark chortled.

Clutching the cue stick tightly, Booth shuffled into position at the right corner. He leaned over to examine the angles, losing his balance slightly and then correcting himself. Hesitantly, he lifted the stick and placed it over his left hand, fingers moving into position to notch and steady the stick.

The trembling stopped. His eye squinted into a wink, the stick sliding steadily back and forth for two momentum setting passes before he lifted the stick to a high pitch. Abruptly he struck a fast, sharp blow to the white ball. It leaped over the 8, spun off the opposite bank a moment later and hurtled down the table to smack the striped 9, which went careening into the far corner pocket.

Shark took it in with an open jaw. "What the ever-loving _hell_?"

Standing, Booth slid his cue stick to the floor and let a shit-eating grin briefly emerge while the shark was still floundering, as if he'd suddenly been yanked out of his comfortable tank and faced a hungry chef. But it had already been replaced with a befuddled disbelief when Shark turned back to growl a furious question.

"You screwing with me, Tex?"

"I made it?" Booth was nothing but amazed. "I made it!"

Shark's face darkened, furious but unable to deny Booth had made the impossible shot. Disgusted at the piss-blind dumb luck he'd just witnessed, he peeled off $160 cash and flipped it onto the table.

Booth pocketed the money with a delighted whoop, stumbling over to his O'Doul's non-alcoholic beer for a last swig. Watching the shark stomp off, Booth chuckled and dropped the drunk act. $160 was not a bad haul for two hours of working the table.

The problem with Shark over there was he'd never once caught on that he was actually the 'Mark.'

Deception was part of the hustle. Lie, cheat, manipulate, watch for tells, watch for weaknesses, move in and take the money (or the girl, or the confession). He read people like neon signs and that just made it so easy that Seeley Booth never imagined he might have a 'gambling problem.' He rarely lost anything worse than a few hours of sleep, so it wasn't much of a problem.

He might have gone on that way indefinitely, but his life was about to change. In a few days he would walk into a classroom at American University and his whole world would be knocked off its axis.

~Q~

"Excuse me. Where can I find Dr. Temperance Brennan's class?" Still wearing his suit from the morning win, Special Agent Booth had snagged the arm of a young man rushing past. Bearing a backpack loaded with books and a scruffy appearance, the kid looked like he belonged in a Geology class.

The young man paused. "Uh, Brennan? What class is that?"

"Forensic Anthropology," Booth supplied.

"Oh. Oh yeah, she's the hot prof." The kid grinned. "Room 217."

Booth scowled. "'Hot prof?' Don't they teach you kids any respect these days?"

The student was already moving on, but tossed back over his shoulder. "Just wait. You'll see." Then he was lost around a corner.

Booth took the stairs and strode through mostly empty hallways. The clock was ticking close to the hour, a few students were dashing through doors to escape class early. When he found room 217, he was glad to see it was a fairly large lecture hall. He could sit in the back and size up this Dr. Brennan.

At the front of the hall, a glass case contained what appeared to be skeletal human remains. There was a white board and a computer projector, a combination of old and new lecture tools. To one side a table was set with a single, large jar of something resembling coffee beans that seemed to writhe and oscillate in a hypnotic pattern.

A hush held over the room, all of the students sitting perfectly still as a woman spoke from the dais, next to the glass case. She was tall. She was young, surprisingly so, and Booth shook his head in disbelief as he realized this expert was well under age thirty. Her sexy yet professional appearance made it hard for him to imagine her kneeling over muddy pits filled with dead bodies. Yet it was the quiet in the classroom that puzzled him the most: having been to college himself, Booth could only recall students being this quiet and attentive when the professor was strict, or entertaining. Wondering which condition applied here, he started to listen to her.

"Next we are going to discuss two ways of macerating flesh without damaging evidence on the bones." When her voice registered, Booth felt his jaw drop open a little bit further, now thoroughly captivated by the beautiful young woman his friend had referred him to. The siren call of her voice seemed fitting to her stature—a breathy alto, authoritative, yet richly feminine and sexy as hell. He was beginning to suspect _that_ was why no one made a sound.

"For decades, boiling has been the preferred method," Dr. Brennan continued. "Boiling has the advantage of being both thorough and excellent for decontamination in cases where virulence may be of concern. However, the bone itself is cooked, transforming the marrow and making DNA retrieval and other tissue samplings impossible. Also, boiling leaves its own marks upon the bones. For the inexperienced, these marks can be confused with artifacts from the scene or events leading up to burial….."

A lack of scientific background left him with no idea what she was saying. Even if he could have followed the convoluted words, all the blood rushing out of his head into less intellectual territory left Booth at a disadvantage. Instead of trying to follow the lecture, his eyes followed her curvy figure as she wandered across the stage. Even from here, way in the back, he could see that she was going to be amazing up close.

Booth waited until the lecture had nearly finished before approaching her. The student's words out in the hallway came back to him, 'the hot prof.' Just as the young man had predicted, Booth now understood. Every student in the room was still riveted to her, the males especially.

Finally coming near enough to see her in complete detail, he saw that Dr. Temperance Brennan was more than beautiful—arresting was the only word that came to his mind. The sight of her brought him to a complete stop. Her square jaw and angled cheekbones were framed by silky chestnut hair loosely pushed back. She had a slender Byzantine nose and finely sculpted lips. But it was her eyes that would stop any man's heart. He had never seen eyes so alive with alert intelligence.

"Any questions," she finally asked her class, but her eyes were on the man walking towards her against the tide. The bell rang and the students finally shifted out of their trances, starting to gather up their belongings.

And that reminded Booth of the reason he was here. To test her, to harness her talent. He slipped into Hustler mode with practiced ease, playing dumb so she could have a chance to 'school' him. Let her be the smart one. "I have a question. If you remove the flesh, aren't you destroying the evidence?"

"On the contrary, I am revealing evidence."

Not only did his dumb question not impress her, it gave every sign of boring her.

_Okay, she doesn't go for the dumb jock type._ He quickly adjusted his approach, trying to demonstrate a higher level of competence with a more technically detailed question and waited for her to fall into his trap. But she didn't.

"All of the best evidence is written in the bones, if you know where to look." And, she informed him confidently, she did know because she was the best in the world.

"Oh." Booth waited a beat, but her smile never came. "Okay, you're serious."

Dr. Brennan straightened, finally noting the suit and nondescript necktie and realized he didn't quite belong in her classroom. "Are you a student here?"

He gave her his most charming smile and held out his credentials. "Special Agent Seeley Booth, from the FBI." Ordinarily, showing the badge increased feminine interest exponentially. Ordinarily, that slow grin with a warm slide of chocolate eyes made women's hearts flutter, but not this time. Not this woman. She didn't melt so much as stand firm and put up a 'keep off the grass' sign.

Grey eyes flecked with green and gold watched his approach with frank curiosity. They slid up and down, assessing him in some undefinable way that looked like abstract calculation. Finally deciding to extend her hand, she introduced herself with a mere trace of a smile as her lively gaze lifted and danced over his face. He wouldn't know until years later that she was cataloging his bones. "I'm Dr. Temperance Brennan, of the Jeffersonian Institution."

Her proffered hand barely registered, because her slightly crooked smile had already lodged itself somewhere deep in his chest and set _his_ pulse tripping. What would it take to make that smile bloom brighter? He took her hand, shook it, and watched for any flicker of interest in her. Another slow tease of a grin from him. "Hmmm. Do you believe in fate?"

"Absolutely not. Ludicrous."

Not once in his adult life had the charm smile failed to work. Not until now, when Dr. Temperance Brennan tossed her head and dismissed his charm and flirting as so much useless banter. She was impervious to both and he was astonished.

Finally, with a slight mental shake, he brought himself back to business. Another attempt at humor. "I'd like your help with a case I'm working on. I hear you're the best."

"Yes, I believe I just said that." Her furrowing brow told him he was losing her; she was starting to think he was an idiot.

What the hell was it going to take to get her interested? Usually he could size a mark up in less than a minute, could hone in on the vice that motivated them in a way that could almost be called psychic. Flirting failed, charm flopped. She wasn't vain despite her obvious confidence in her own abilities. This Dr. Brennan didn't present any obvious ways in, a fact that confounded Seeley the hustler and left just Booth the man to flounder helplessly on his own. He shifted his weight and shifted focus to work, the only legitimate thing remaining. "We found a girl, skeletonized, and we're unable to identify her. A colleague of mine suggested you might be able to help."

That was how he stumbled upon it, by accident: truth was what she looked for. Hearing this, she smiled back at him fully at last, her silvery eyes glinting with interest and curiosity. And she was absolutely stunning when she smiled. _Oh, w__hat will it take to make her mine...?_ While Temperance Brennan looked for mysteries, Seeley Booth looked for the chase. He was always up for a challenging mark and she was the most mysterious mark he'd ever met.

~Q~

Booth had asked her about fate, but a more appropriate question might have been to ask if she believed in magic. Within a day of meeting her, Brennan revealed the extent of her magical capabilities by revealing his victim's age, race, hobbies, car accident history (before 1998), region of birth and a move north (at age 8!), plus a sketch that looked almost as real as a photograph.

"I'm sorry, but we've been unable to learn her name." And Brennan truly did seem sorrowful.

Needing to manually shut his own gaping jaw, Booth sat up straight and started hunting for her magic wand. Because it wasn't just evidence that she worked her magic upon, it was him. She mangled idioms, failed to understand most of his jokes, but smiled when he complimented her. Her enthusiasm bordered on the childlike side of charming. It had been a long time since he'd enjoyed talking to someone this much, since anyone had seemed so refreshingly unique and unpredictable.

The arguments began one minute later. Booth showed her a photo of his prime suspect and she asked with complete sincerity, "then why isn't he in jail?"

"Because I don't have any proof."

Her nose crinkled, her smooth brow formed a series of puckers, and Booth thought he'd never seen anything cuter than Temperance Brennan confused. "Then how do you know he did it?"

"I just do." _Oh, God, those amazing eyes._

She cocked her head to the side, deciding solemnly, "It seems to me that someone like you could benefit hugely from an association with someone like me."

A short burst of laughter at her blunt assessment was followed a moment later by Booth trying to loosen her up. But what he had realized from their little exchange was that she didn't believe his gut could do anything other than digest food, and dismissed the idea of instinct or intuition as mere fantasy or beneficial coincidences. She didn't believe in _him_. It was that simple, and with a desperation that almost shocked him, he decided Brennan needed to be convinced of his gut prowess. So he invited her to watch an interview with the victim's boyfriend ("Can I watch you broil the suspect?") and the first genuine sense of victory came from the slow acceptance he won from her.

He'd never felt better, higher, more sure of himself, then he did the moment she leaned over and told him, "Anthropologically, men are programmed to be the protectors of their mates." Her squinty agreement that Jemma's boyfriend was innocent thrilled Booth more than any hustled win ever had. This was her skepticism overcome by honest admiration of his demonstrated abilities. He wanted to feel that pleasurable burst of confidence again. Immediately.

Next came the revelation.

In hope of recapturing that thrill of her approval, he took her with him to confront Judge Hasty. Brennan's remarkable ability to confound Booth extended to just about anyone she spoke with. Without intention, she unbalanced the slimy judge, knocking the man so far out of alignment that he slipped and revealed his true nature. Hasty snarled insults at Brennan, stepping into her space, even going so far as to grab her arm.

_See, baby, I'm right. I'm always right._ He'd read Hasty like a Broadway marquee the moment he'd met the man. Brennan's blunt statements had drawn out a side of the Judge that Booth had intuitively known was there all along and just as she'd insisted was necessary, here was the _proof_! Booth suspected it was because Brennan didn't pay heed to social cues and kept pushing where others would hold back, or possibly Judge Hasty was unhinged by her lack of deference. Whatever it was, Booth didn't have to do much more than watch her bludgeon the Judge with her unconventional communication. She was carrying it on her own, provoking madness and giving him the cash that would seal the deal. Operation Hustle the Judge into Jail was playing out perfectly and she wasn't even fully in collusion with him!

Imagine what they could do if she actually did work with him. Booth watched it all in fascination, visions of Brennan becoming his stalkinghorse dancing in his head. Instead of fronting the money she would front him the evidence. She was the perfect foil, his opposite, his straightwoman. She would shake the suspects and he would watch them, wait for the crack and then pounce! What a team they would make. They would be unstoppable.

But Hasty was grabbing her arm so he really ought to—_snap!_—Booth blinked, his jaw falling open again. Out of nowhere, Temperance Brennan had let fly a solid right jab at the judge's nose, knocking the man backwards. She stalked forward, eyes fierce and predatory and another blow knocked the man completely down. What the hell...? Booth gaped again, utterly gobsmacked by the unexpected.

"Is this very bad?" She sounded very young, yet another surprise.

Holy mother of mercy and man, _no one_ had seen that coming! Being that shocked was such a rarity that Booth laughed and regarded her with undisguised delight. "You are so _hot_!"

He wanted her. He wanted more, more magic, more unexpected curve balls, more curves in the road, more of her curves he could see hidden under her jacket, more flashing changeable eyes, more of her quirky idiom errors. Just … _more_.

~Q~

They met in his favorite pool bar down in Anacostia, and for the first time ever, Seeley Booth walked past the tables and sat at the bar next to Temperance Brennan.

"Hey, Seeley! You're not playing tonight?" Ed at the bar raised an impressed set of eyebrows when he spotted the reason Booth had foregone the pleasures of pool.

"Got other plans tonight," Booth answered. "Ed, this is Temperance Brennan."

"_Doctor_ Brennan," she corrected crisply.

Ed chuckled. Oh boy, she was a live one. Hot, haughty, high class. "You're out of your league with this one, Seeley."

"Shut up, Ed. We work together." But not for long... That pipedream had already come to an untimely end thanks to paranoid prosecutor Caroline Julian. Now Seeley was reevaluating his options because he still hadn't given up his primary objective. He still wanted Temperance Brennan in whatever capacity he could manage to acquire her.

"In any group," Brennan had said, "No matter how restrictive, the freethinkers—the mavericks, the rebels with leadership quality—find ways to declare their distinctiveness."

Booth had wondered what it would take to loosen her up, maybe even get her to pay a little more of her highly focused attention to him instead of searching for the source of a sliver of wood. He'd leered at her a little. "You know, I'm a freethinking, rogue rebel." And she didn't respond, just flicked her eyes coolly over his bland, black necktie.

By now he was starting to understand that words weren't going to be enough. Dr. Temperance Brennan demanded proof. Evidence. He found a kitschy (triple X, pinup girl) necktie someone had given him as a prank and wore it when he met her for drinks. "I am going rogue," he told her and waggled the tie. Her amazing eyes lit with approval and Booth almost glowed in the dark.

The FBI wouldn't let him date her while they were working together, but thanks to Brennan's impulsive assault on the Judge, that line was about to be unequivocally erased. (Had she done that on purpose? At this point he wouldn't put anything past her.) Now he had to fire her, and that was too bad but on the bright side there would be nothing stopping him from asking her out. So ... Tequila to soften the blow, then ... he'd reel her in.

They tipped back five shots apiece before he sighed dreamily and fired her.

Her dismay lasted all of five seconds before she leaned over and reeled _him_ in. "If we're not working together, we can have sex."

This curve ball hit him harder than a hardball at 90 miles per hour. His brain splattered, his body erupted, everything pounded and throbbed. He'd never been so turned on in his LIFE. "I'll call a cab."

It was raining, the world was spinning, she was tossing on her jacket and the cab was waiting. "Listen, I have something to confess."

_I think this is going somewhere._ That's what he had intended to say, a line to put her at ease, to ease her into the cab and into his bed. It wasn't a line now. He wanted more than a night. God. He wanted everything. She looked up, those eyes, that incredible intelligence, her oddball humor, the way she got so excited over ordinary things. What Ed had said in there slammed home. She was out of his league. She was out of his _universe_. She was smiling, asking him if it was the fact that he was a descendent of John Wilkes Booth? because she already knew that.

Totally thrown, he sputtered, "Wait a second! How do you know that?!"

"From your bone structure."

Right. Obvious. He marveled at her curves and turns: like being on a roller coaster, every moment with her was an unexpected thrill. "What I wanted to confess was, that I have a gambling problem..." And her eyes softened, as if she understood what this meant. Because she was a genius, and magic. "...But I'm dealing with it."

Right now. He wanted to, right now. For Temperance Brennan he would do _anything_ to be worthy of her approval.

"Why did you feel you had to tell me that?"

"I don't know. I just feel like, um, this is going somewhere." The line, but it wasn't a lie. _Oh yes, let's go somewhere. Baby, please take me with you. I like who I am when I'm with you._

"Why did you feel like this is going somewhere?" She stepped closer, eyes dancing, lips curving, so beautiful and lively and perfect.

"I just ... I feel like I'm going to kiss you," he sighed.

The shock of her lips on his was literal. An electric jolt zapped him, the current running through every nerve in his body. She slid her lips over his and withdrew, dancing, teasing, using friction and anticipation with complete mastery. She was as much a genius at kissing as she was at blindsiding him. It hit him everywhere at once: his head, his heart, his groin, his entire being falling under her spell. Magic. Fate. _More, more, give me more._ He reached for her, pulling her closer, felt her mouth opening, tasted her sweet teasing tongue, wanted it to never end.

Paradise, right there in his mouth, in his hands, burning his body, saving his soul, filling him with the scent of summer rain and the taste of Tequila and the sensual bite of Temperance Brennan. Then she was pulling away. Paradise Lost.

"Wow..."

She was laughing, dancing back out of reach, into the rain, her eyes sparkling like raindrops under the streetlights. "We are not spending the night together!"

"Of course we are... Why not?" It took him a second to catch up. From this point on, he would fall further and further behind because his world was being knocked off its axis. He just didn't know it yet.

"Tequila." She was already in the cab, she was leaving. She teased he'd never regret a night with her.

The cab left one dazed Seeley Booth standing in the rain, the Hustler in him wondering if this was what it felt like when he took money out of the hands of a mark. She'd set him up and stolen his heart and he wasn't sure if she'd marked him intentionally. He turned and went back into the pool hall.

"Shoulda taken that girl somewhere respectable," Ed advised. It was obvious to him that a classy dame like the beautiful doctor wasn't going to spend much time in a joint like this. "Why'd you bring her here?"

The man in him sighed, "I wanted her to know who I am."

Laughing sympathetically, the wiser man shook his head. "You want to be with a girl like her, you can't let a place like this be any part of you."

~Q~

The world stopped spinning. It wobbled and fell.

~Q~

The phone rang three times before Hank Lutrell picked it up. "Hello?"

A high pitched caterwauling in the background made Booth wince. "Hey, Hank, sorry to bother you. Wow, is that Ella?"

Hank chuckled. "Sorry, Ella and Emily are going rounds over the remote." The sounds faded, Hank's voice jittering a bit as he walked into another room so he could hear over the squabbling kids. "Sounds like some kind of chaos is going on where you are also...?"

The bells and rustle of the casino were pretty loud. Booth gripped his phone tightly. "I'm in Vegas."

A long pause. "I see. Well, um, I'm really glad you called."

"No, it's ... it's not that bad. Not yet. I'm here on a case."

"Seeley, you might want to take this call outside. You sound like you're losing it."

He was. Maybe. Turning, Booth looked for his partner at the 21 table where he'd left her. "I can't leave Bones. I can't lose her." He shook his head, wondering if that was a Freudian slip. Because if he lost sight of her, he'd lose himself in here. And if he lost himself in the gambling, he'd lose her forever.

"Why didn't you tell Bureau you can't work in Vegas? I mean, that's why you transferred out in the first place."

"A missing Federal Prosecutor turned up as a skeleton so, you know, they sent for Bones. Dr. Brennan. Only the best." He gave a short laugh. Where Bones went he would follow. "So we're here. The thing is, I don't know how I'm going get through this."

"Well, keep her with you. She's the reason you went into the program to begin with, right?"

That was fine for the day, Booth thought, but what the hell was he going to do at night? "I can't stay with her every minute."

Then Hank reminded him who they were talking about. "You told her, right? She knows. The first time you admitted you had a problem, it was to her."

Closing his eyes, he could see again the beautiful woman he'd wanted that night in the rain, could remember exactly how his words had tumbled out unplanned, and untrue. _"I have a gambling problem, but I'm working on it."_ Then she'd left and the cynical part of him recognized a sting operation. The stung part of him wondered if it was that confession that had changed her mind. And the desperate part of him found a Gambler's Anonymous meeting because he didn't think they had a program for liars.

By the time he finally managed to see her again, his untrue confession had become the truth. She'd made him honest. Just as he'd hoped in the opera house, Bones was the perfect foil, backing him, highlighting the best of him, making him shine.

"Yeah, she knows."

_"Booth, you can't be in here. You're a degenerate gambler!"_ That blunt honesty that never failed to knock him off balance had this time knocked the bells and lights out of his vision. Her crystalline, concerned eyes replaced the lure of winning cash, not judging but worried all the same and reminding him of what he stood to lose if he lost it in here. _Her_. And by extension, the best parts of himself. He found her again sitting a few tables away, needing the visual anchor of her stabilizing influence.

"So, just be honest with her. Tell her you need to share a room. "

Share a room, how the hell was he going to convince Bones of that? He glanced around the casino, considering all the players, all the options and the thought of simply asking her for help was the one thing he'd not considered. Just be honest. Just tell her and he could trust that she would save him from himself. Relief loosened the knots in his shoulders and arms; knowing she was keeping an eye on him would be enough. "Yeah, you might be right, Hank. Yeah, I think that will work."

"Hey, you stay in touch. Call if you need me, don't worry about the time."

Relieved, Booth agreed and hung up. He walked back towards Bones, watching her sense him and turn towards him. Her eyes danced like they did in the rain, like they always did when she was experiencing something new. In the twenty minutes he'd left her alone, his genius partner had mastered 21. Figures.

~Q~

Roxie walked out of their shared bathroom wearing a dress that sent her Tony right back to a steamy summer night in a pool hall. Her eyes flashed, her hips swayed; she wasn't the Temperance Brennan he knew at all, and yet ... she was the woman he could remember laughing over Tequila shots, kissing him in the rain, playfully leaving him with the promise of paradise once he sobered up.

"What got into you?" he'd exclaimed, thrilled to see what she was capable of, and she'd given credit to Clara Bow and a clandestine excursion to the craps tables last night. Now, hours later in their shared room, Booth sat in a chair and replayed her sultry walk, her laughter, her playful wit, the way she'd drawn men in with her eyes. Not just him, _all_ of them. He was thinking he might have asked the wrong question. What he should have asked was, 'what went out of you?' This Roxie side of her wasn't an imitation of a 1920s film star, it was _her_. The teasing Tempe he'd fallen so hard for was still there, deeply buried under disciplined logic and reason.

In a way, he'd finally gotten his wish: they were finally spending the night together, but he was too busy comparing nights to relax and enjoy the situation.

As if she sensed his regard Brennan stirred and shifted, coming awake to notice he was not in the bed beside her but at the window instead, watching her. She sat up slowly and met his solemn gaze with one of her own. "Why are you sitting over there?"

"Can't sleep."

Switching on a lamp she started to move, intending to get up and fetch him another ice pack. "Is your zygomatic bone aching still?"

Where Agent Sugarman's flying fist had taken him down? Booth chuckled. Nothing hurt there but his pride. "Nah. I was thinking."

Subsiding, tugging the blanket closer around her waist, Brennan remained where she was. A small, impish grin danced around her suggestion. "You could think in bed."

Next to her? Booth raised a brow, felt his pulse rising also, as well as certain other parts of his anatomy. "There are other activities I prefer to do in bed."

"Such as...?"

"Sleep." He forced himself to stop at the obvious, terrified of what might happen if he ventured any farther into what he would love to be doing with her in a bed.

"You're not sleeping," she pointed out agreeably. "Is something bothering you?"

Being so close and unable to touch her was bothering him. Hearing her breathe and sigh in her sleep was bothering him. Knowing that he wanted to be honest with her and yet he was hiding his 'friends with benefits' arrangement with Cam from her bothered him. "Bones..."

Another teasing dart as she corrected him. "Roxie."

"There's no one here but us. You can drop the act."

Brennan leaned forward and grinned, ridiculously frisky considering how early it was. "Who says I'm acting."

There it was again, the contradiction of Bones and Roxie. She was Bones, who still hadn't caught on to his dark mood, and this Roxie was also Tempe, the playful flirt who kissed him and ran, hoping he'd follow. This was the one woman he couldn't read well because she was so far outside of the ordinary and he'd guessed wrong, played it cool when she'd looked for warm. Everything went wrong because he wasn't honest with her. And as a result, everything else in his life was finally going right.

Conflict must have showed on his face because the imp slipped away, leaving his concerned partner to finally notice his preoccupation. "What are you worried about?"

Suddenly making a decision, he got up and sat next to her on the bed. "Being here, seeing you as Roxie today, it made me remember some things. It helped me remember some priorities. There's something..." and here he paused, searching for the right phrase to finish. _Something you don't know about me... Something I need to thank you for... Something I still have to do..._ All of the above.

So he backed up a step. "You know I went through the program, Gambler's Anonymous."

"Yes. You told me you were working on it when we met." Their eyes held with all the force of electromagnets, remembering kisses and confessions. There was no condemnation, only the acceptance of this aspect of him, just as much a part as height or eye color. Booth was a gambler, Brennan accepted it. She didn't fear it; she trusted him and that he had it under control (with a bit of help from her in this city of temptations). But it was a misplaced trust and that was what had kept him awake all night.

"Bones, part of the program is to become honest, to face ourselves and acknowledge who we are, the things we've done, the people we've hurt. It's one of the most difficult steps. The ugliest things we've ever done, we have to confess it to another human being. It's step five."

"Okay," she said, and waited with that watchful patience that was just as much a part of her as she thought gambling was part of him.

"I took that step with you."

Now he had surprised her. "You did?"

"In the graveyard."

Memory hit. He could see it, her eyes widening in the lamplight, tears starting, amazement and a touch of fear. "Oh..." And she didn't say anything more, just pulled herself over to embrace him. "Thank you," she finally whispered, "for trusting me."

Holding her, he felt the guilt squeezing him because he hadn't trusted her with everything and that meant her faith in him rested on a false understanding of who he was. So he drew a fortifying breath and added, "But I didn't finish it."

Their embrace held even though he could feel her waiting for more.

"I mean, it's an ongoing process because it's an ongoing disease. I need to tell you everything. I need to finish step five so I can get on to step nine." He could almost hear her thoughts stumble over the skipped numbers, he could feel her puzzled tension as she pulled back and sure enough, that confused little wrinkle was there.

"What about steps six through eight?"

Temperance Brennan was still adorable when she was confused. Laughing fondly, he brushed a wisp of hair aside and let her settle back. "I finished them. It's just five and nine that I still have to work on."

"Because they're the hardest?"

"Yeah." Because they were about her. Because it's hard to look someone in the eyes and admit you've wronged them. It's hard to ask for undeserved forgiveness. He looked into her eyes and revealed the darkest part of himself, the part she still didn't know. "I was a hustler."

Her confusion intensified, as well as a tiny squeak of amazement. "You posed nude for an erotic magazine?"

"What?! Why would you...?" Then his furious blush dissipated into another laugh and he shook his head. "No, not that kind of Hustler, Bones. I was a pool shark."

The innocent part of her clearly did not know what that was so he swallowed his shame and spelled it out for her. "Con artist. Swindler. Cheater. Liar." He stopped there, at the truth. "I was a liar."

Silence so thick there was nothing but breathing and her guarded gaze.

"I lied to you."

He watched her face going blank as her emotions went into hiding. "When?"

"That night when I told you I had a gambling problem. I lied to you when I said the problem was gambling, and that I was working on it."

Brennan had pulled all the way back until they no longer touched each other and leaned up against the headboard. "I see."

"I wanted it to be true, both being a gambler, and working on it." Because being a gambler meant it wasn't his fault, but being a liar was a character flaw. He'd hoped saying it would make it true. But wanting it wasn't enough, he had to reach for it. Fight himself for it. Fight for a chance with her.

"So, you're _not_ a gambler...?"

Oh, he had gambled, at first. Right out of the army in Vegas, again in New York and DC, but all those times he'd stopped the losing streaks by changing focus. Instead of betting on other people or on games of chance, he began to bet on himself because the odds were so much better. Forcing himself to look at her, to be honest, he explained it so she would understand. One thing hadn't changed: he still wanted her to know who he was.

"I've always been able to read people. I used that ability to manipulate people into placing bets against me at pool. I'd pretend I couldn't play well, then I would beat them and take their money. I wasn't gambling, Bones, I was swindling. In high school, I used my ability to win over girls. For the FBI, I use my ability to manipulate in the interrogation room. I've always lied for a living. I lied to suspects, to families, to girlfriends, to everyone. But it wasn't until I lied to you, that I realized ... I didn't want to do that anymore. "

She had been looking down into her lap, tears discreetly brushed aside, but at this she looked up and let him see the impact, let him see he was hurting her all over again. Always rational, she went straight for the disconnected logic of his confession. "If you lied to everyone, then why would it matter that you lied to me?"

"Because you are honest. You thought _I_ was honest, and I liked being the man you thought I was. I wanted to be with you but I thought there was no way someone as amazing as you would be with a guy like me, unless I changed. So I told you what I _wanted_ to be true. When it didn't work out between us, when you saw through me and left ... that's when I decided I had to make it true. I went to the first GA meeting two days after you hit me."

She blushed and averted her eyes again. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have assaulted you."

A soft laugh forgave her. "I'm glad you did. You knocked some sense into me. Being here in Vegas has reminded me what it was like before I met you, what _I_ was like before I met you." Nodding slowly, she kept her gaze averted and picked an imaginary piece of lint off the surface of the bed. "Seeing Roxie reminded me what _you_ were like before... Bones, I always told myself you pulled the rug out from under me to prove a point."

"Pulled a rug...?"

"I told myself you knew what was going on and you tricked me. Conned me into wanting you and then you left me high and ... wet ... in the rain." His self-mocking smile softened the assessment because now he knew that wasn't what had happened, not at all. "Now I'm thinking there's a reason I've never seen that side of you again, until now. You let the fun side of yourself out to play with me and I hurt you, so you locked her back up again."

He knew he was right. With the firing, he'd gotten her hopes up only to dash them again when he hired her back the next day. He'd hurt that teasing, playful girl so much that she was too scared to come out and play with anyone. It was his fault Roxie was gone and he didn't know when he'd ever get to see her again.

"I'm sorry, Temperance." He'd never been more sorry in his life. Breaking her fragile heart was the worst thing he'd ever done. Step five was admitting it out loud. Step nine was to apologize knowing nothing he could say would ever repair what he'd broken.

"It's fine. Don't worry about it." Cool professional Bones, guarded and detached.

"I do worry about it," he insisted softly, feeling a rather unusual need to blink his burning eyes but that would mean taking them off of her for too long. He never wanted to take his eyes off her again. "I'm pretty sure you saved my job, my relationship with Parker, maybe my life. Hurting you is something I'm always going to regret, but I can't completely because it was the wake-up call that I needed."

"To stop lying to everyone?"

God, when she put it that way... He sighed, knowing he deserved far worse. "Because of you I realized I need to strive for honesty."

He could hear the doubt and hesitation in Brennan, his ability to correctly read her having vastly improved via the 18 months he'd worked so closely at her side. "Booth, are you always honest with me now?"

His heart stumbled, his fingers tingled like the hustler feeling the felt. He knew what she needed to hear. "Yeah. I always tell you the truth." (Except for the part about Cam, which wasn't exactly a lie since she'd never directly asked him, 'Are you having sex with my boss...?') Since that night he'd never deliberately told her something false but his conscience was kicking him in the back of the head, prodding him to admit, "But it's something I'm always going to struggle with."

"Thank you for being honest." So formal.

Booth leaned forward and took her hands in his, replacing felt with the soft skin of the person he admired most. "You're my partner, Bones, but more importantly, you know me."

His hopeful eyes clung to hers, guarded but not turning away. _You know me, all the ugly parts of me._ And she was still there, still his partner, still the woman he would do anything for. "Having your trust is the most precious gift I've ever been given. I never want to ruin that."

"I trust you, Booth."

And he could see that she still did, even now. All he could do was keep striving to be worthy of it.

~Q~

* * *

**Author's Note:** In _Parts of the Sum of the Whole_, Booth began his story by saying he was at an early morning Gambler's Anonymous meeting the day he met Brennan. Meanwhile, the flashback shows him winning $40 running the table. He was a pool shark, which means he deceived other people into betting against him and then he took their money. That's why his line to Sweets, "It wasn't a problem because I mostly won," is huge. He wasn't the one gambling, he lied about his abilities to get _others_ to gamble against him so he could fleece them. And I think maybe he viewed Brennan's behavior through that prism. He thought she'd set him up, which is why he was angry with her.

To be fair to Booth, I think by this point (Woman in the Sand) he'd changed so much (for the better) from the man he was in 2004 that he might be able to appreciate his own transformation. He might also realize that he'd wronged Brennan and part of the GA program is to admit harm and ask for forgiveness. I've always had the feeling from the way Booth and Brennan tell the story to Sweets, so in harmony with each other, that they must have resolved their initial fight at some point and forgiven each other.

Thank you for reading. :)


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